
THE TALES OF CHEKHOV 

THE WITCH 

AND OTHER 
STORIES 


ANTON CHEKHOV 

* 

TRANSLATED BY 
CONSTANCE GARNETT 












Class r / 1 C- 

Book. ‘C , 1 ^ %jS 
CopyriglitK?- V\Ljfc 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSED 










THE TALES OF CHEKHOV 

VOL. VI 

THE WITCH 

AND OTHER STORIES 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON * CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 






\ 



\ 





THE WITCH 

AND OTHER STORIES 


BY 

ANTON CHEKHOV 

A 


FROM THE RUSSIAN BY 

CONSTANCE GARNETT 

. 


Nnn fnrk 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1918 


AU rights reserved 




Copyright, 1918 

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Set up and printed. Published April, 1918 



MM 22 1918 

©Cl. A 4 97 410 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Witch 3 

Peasant Wives 25 

The Post 49 

The New Villa 61 

Dreams 85 

The Pipe 101 

Agafya 1 1 7 

At Christmas Time 135 

Gusev 145 

The Student 169 

In the Ravine 177 

The Huntsman 241 

Happiness 251 

A Malefactor 269 

Peasants 279 




THE WITCH 

























THE TALES OF CHEKHOV 


THE WITCH 

It was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely 
Gykin, was lying in his huge bed in the hut adjoining 
the church. He was not asleep, though it was his 
habit to go to sleep at the same time as the hens. 
His coarse red hair peeped from under one end of 
the greasy patchwork quilt, made up of coloured 
rags, while his big unwashed feet stuck out from the 
other. He was listening. His hut adjoined the 
wall that encircled the church and the solitary win- 
dow in it looked out upon the open country. And 
out there a regular battle was going on. It was hard 
to say who was being wiped off the face of the earth, 
and for the sake of whose destruction nature was be- 
ing churned up into such a ferment; but, judging 
from the unceasing malignant roar, someone was 
getting it very hot. A victorious force was in full 
chase over the fields, storming in the forest and on 
the church roof, battering spitefully with its fists upon 
the windows, raging and tearing, while something 
vanquished was howling and wailing. ... A plain- 
tive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or 
in the stove. It sounded not like a call for help, 
but like a cry of misery, a consciousness that it was 
too late, that there was no salvation. The snow- 
3 


The Tales of Chekhov 


4 

drifts were covered with a thin coating of ice; tears 
quivered on them and on the trees; a dark slush of 
mud and melting snow flowed along the roads and 
paths. In short, it was thawing, but through the 
dark night the heavens failed to see it, and flung 
flakes of fresh snow upon the melting earth at a 
terrific rate. And the wind staggered like a drunk- 
ard. It would not let the snow settle on the ground, 
and whirled it round in the darkness at random. 

Savely listened to all this din and frowned. The 
fact was that he knew, or at any rate suspected, 
what all this racket outside the window was tending 
to and whose handiwork it was. 

“ I know ! ” he muttered, shaking his finger men- 
acingly under the bedclothes; “ I know all about it.” 

On a stool by the window sat the sexton’s wife, 
Ra’issa Nilovna. A tin lamp standing on another 
stool, as though timid and distrustful of its powers, 
shed a dim and flickering light on her broad shoul- 
ders, on the handsome, tempting-looking contours 
of her person, and on her thick plait, which reached 
to the floor. She was making sacks out of coarse 
hempen stuff. Her hands moved nimbly, while her 
whole body, her eyes, her eyebrows, her full lips, 
her white neck were as still as though they were 
asleep, absorbed in the monotonous, mechanical toil. 
Only from time to time she raised her head to rest 
her weary neck, glanced for a moment towards the 
window, beyond which the snowstorm was raging, 
and bent again over her sacking. No desire, no joy, 
no grief, nothing was expressed by her handsome 
face with its turned-up nose and its dimples. So a 


The Witch 


5 

beautiful fountain expresses nothing when it is not 
playing. 

But at last she had finished a sack. She flung it 
aside, and, stretching luxuriously, rested her motion- 
less, lack-lustre eyes on the window. The panes 
were swimming with drops like tears, and white with 
short-lived snowflakes which fell on the window, 
glanced at Ra'issa, and melted. . . . 

“ Come to bed ! ” growled the sexton. Raissa re- 
mained mute. But suddenly her eyelashes flickered 
and there was a gleam of attention in her eye. 
Savely, all the time watching her expression from 
under the quilt, put out his head and asked: 

“ What ts it?” 

“ Nothing. ... I fancy someone’s coming,” she 
answered quietly. 

The sexton flung the quilt off with his arms and 
legs, knelt up in bed, and looked blankly at his wife. 
The timid light of the lamp illuminated his hirsute, 
pock-marked countenance and glided over his rough 
matted hair. 

“ Do you hear? ” asked his wife. 

Through the monotonous roar of the storm he 
caught a scarcely audible thin and jingling monotone 
like the shrill note of a gnat when it wants to settle 
on one’s cheek and is angry at being prevented. 

“ It’s the post,” muttered Savely, squatting on his 
heels. 

Two miles from the church ran the posting road. 
In windy weather, when the wind was blowing from 
the road to the church, the inmates of the hut caught 
the sound of bells. 


6 


The Tales of Chekhov 

“Lord! fancy people wanting to drive about in 
such weather,” sighed Rai'ssa. 

“ It’s government work. You’ve to go whether 
you like or not.” 

The murmur hung in the air and died away. 

“ It has driven by,” said Savely, getting into bed. 

But before he had time to cover himself up with 
the bedclothes he heard a distinct sound of the bell. 
The sexton looked anxiously at his wife, leapt out of 
bed and walked, waddling, to and fro by the stove. 
The bell went on ringing for a little, then died away 
again as though it had ceased. 

“ I don’t hear it,” said the sexton, stopping and 
looking at his wife with his eyes screwed up. 

But at that moment the wind rapped on the win- 
dow and with it floated a shrill jingling note. 
Savely turned pale, cleared his throat, and flopped 
about the floor with his bare feet again. 

“ The postman is lost in the storm,” he wheezed 
out glancing malignantly at his wife. “ Do you 
hear? The postman has lost his way! . . . I . . . 
I know! Do you suppose 1 . . . don’t under- 
stand? ” he muttered. “ I know all about it, curse 
you ! ” 

“What do you know?” Raissa asked quietly, 
keeping her eyes fixed on the window. 

“ I know that it’s all your doing, you she-devil! 
Your doing, damn you! This snowstorm and the 
post going wrong, you’ve done it all — you ! ” 

“ You’re mad, you silly,” his wife answered 
calmly. 

“ I’ve been watching you for a long time past and 


The Witch 


7 

I’ve seen it. From the first day I married you I 
noticed that you’d bitch’s blood in you ! ” 

“Tfoo!” said Rai'ssa, surprised, shrugging her 
shoulders and crossing herself. “ Cross yourself, 
you fool ! ” 

“ A witch is a witch,” Savely pronounced in a hol- 
low, tearful voice, hurriedly blowing his nose on the 
hem of his shirt; “ though you are my wife, though 
you are of a clerical family, I’d say what you are 
even at confession. . . . Why, God have mercy 
upon us! Last year on the Eve of the Prophet 
Daniel and the Three Young Men there was a snow- 
storm, and what happened then? The mechanic 
came in tc\ warm himself. Then on St. Alexey’s 
Day the ice broke on the river and the district po- 
liceman turned up, and he was chatting with you all 
night . . . the damned brute ! And when he came 
out in the morning and I looked at him, he had rings 
under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow! Eh? 
During the August fast there were two storms and 
each time the huntsman turned up. I saw it all, 
damn him! Oh, she is redder than a crab now, 
aha! ” 

“ You didn’t see anything.” 

“ Didn’t I ! And this winter before Christmas 
on the Day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete, when the 
storm lasted for a whole day and night — do you 
remember? — the marshal’s clerk was lost, and 
turned up here, the hound. . . . Tfoo! To be 
tempted by the clerk ! It was worth upsetting God’s 
weather for him ! A drivelling scribbler, not a foot 
from the ground, pimples all over his mug and his 


8 


The Tales of Chekhov 


neck awry! If he were good-looking, anyway — 
but he, tfoo ! he is as ugly as Satan ! ” 

The sexton took breath, wiped his lips and list- 
ened. The bell was not to be heard, but the wind 
banged on the roof, and again there came a tinkle 
in the darkness. 

“ And it’s the same thing now! ” Savely went on. 
“ It’s not for nothing the postman is lost! Blast 
my eyes if the postman isn’t looking for you ! Oh, 
the devil is a good hand at his work; he is a fine 
one to help ! He will turn him round and round and 
bring him here. I know, I see! You can’t conceal 
it, you devil’s bauble, you heathen wanton! As 
soon as the storm began I knew what you were up 
to.” 

“Here’s a fool!” smiled his wife. “Why, do 
you suppose, you thick-head, that I make the 
storm? ” 

“H’m! . . . Grin away! Whether it’s your 
doing or not, I only know that when your blood’s on 
fire there’s sure to be bad weather, and when there’s 
bad weather there’s bound to be some crazy fellow 
turning up here. It happens so every time ! So it 
must be you ! ” 

To be more impressive the sexton put his finger 
to his forehead, closed his left eye, and said in a sing- 
song voice : 

“Oh, the madness! oh, the unclean Judas! If 
you really are a human being and not a witch, you 
ought to think what if he is not the mechanic, or the 
clerk, or the huntsman, but the devil in their form! 
Ah! You’d better think of that! ” 


The Witch 


9 

“ Why, you are stupid, Savely,” said his wife, 
looking at him compassionately. “ When father 
was alive and living here, all sorts of people used to 
come to him to be cured of the ague: from the vil- 
lage, and the hamlets, and the Armenian settlement. 
They came almost every day, and no one called them 
devils. But if anyone once a year comes in bad 
weather to warm himself, you wonder at it, you 
silly, and take all sorts of notions into your head at 
once.” 

His wife’s logic touched Savely. He stood with 
his bare feet wide apart, bent his head, and pon- 
dered. He was not firmly convinced yet of the 
truth of his suspicions, and his wife’s genuine and 
unconcerned tone quite disconcerted him. Yet after 
a moment’s thought he wagged his head and said: 

“ It’s not as though they were old men or bandy- 
legged cripples; it’s always young men who want 
to come for the night. . . . Why is that? And 

if they only wanted to warm themselves But 

they are up to mischief. No, woman; there’s no 
creature in this world as cunning as your female 
sort! Of real brains you’ve not an ounce, less than 
a starling, but for devilish slyness — 00-00-00 ! The 
Queen of Heaven protect us! There is the post- 
man’s bell ! When the storm was only beginning I 
knew all that was in your mind. That’s your witch- 
ery, you spider ! ” 

“Why do you keep on at me, you heathen?” 
His wife lost her patience at last. “ Why do you 
keep sticking to it like pitch? ” 

“ I stick to it because if anything — God forbid 


10 


The Tales of Chekhov 


— happens to-night . . . do you hear? . . . if any- 
thing happens to-night, I’ll go straight off to-morrow 
morning to Father Nikodim and tell him all about 
it. ‘ Father Nikodim,’ I shall say, ‘ graciously ex- 
cuse me, but she is a witch.’ ‘ Why so? ’ ‘ H’m ! 

do you want to know why? ’ ‘ Certainly. . . .’ 

And I shall tell him. And woe to you, woman! 
Not only at the dread Seat of Judgment, but in your 
earthly life you’ll be punished, too! It’s not for 
nothing there are prayers in the breviary against 
your kind! ” 

Suddenly there was a knock at the window, so 
loud and unusual that Savely turned pale and almost 
dropped backwards with fright. His wife jumped 
up, and she, too, turned pale. 

“ For God’s sake, let us come in and get warm! ” 
they heard in a trembling deep bass. “ Who lives 
here? For mercy's sake! We’ve lost our way.” 

“ Who are you? ” asked Raissa, afraid to look at 
the window. 

“ The post,” answered a second voice. 

“ You’ve succeeded with your devil’s tricks,” said 
Savely with a wave of his hand. “No mistake; I 
am right! Well, you’d better look out! ” 

The sexton jumped on to the bed in two skips, 
stretched himself on the feather mattress, and sniffing 
angrily, turned with his face to the wall. Soon he 
felt a draught of cold air on his back. The door 
creaked and the tall figure of a man, plastered over 
with snow from head to foot, appeared in the door- 
way. Behind him could be seen a second figure as 
white. 


The Witch 


ll 


“Am I to bring in the bags? ” asked the second 
in a hoarse bass voice. 

“ You can’t leave them there.” Saying this, the 
first figure began untying his hood, but gave it up, 
and pulling it off impatiently with his cap, angrily 
flung it near the stove. Then taking off his great- 
coat, he threw that down beside it, and, without 
saying good-evening, began pacing up and down the 
hut. 

He was a fair-haired, young postman wearing a 
shabby uniform and black rusty-looking high boots. 
After warming himself by walking to and fro, he 
sat down at the table, stretched out his muddy feet 
towards the sacks and leaned his chin on his fist. 
His pale face, reddened in places by the cold, still 
bore vivid traces of the pain and terror he had just 
been through. Though distorted by anger and 
bearing traces of recent suffering, physical and 
moral, it was handsome in spite of the melting snow 
on the eyebrows, moustaches, and short beard. 

“ It’s a dog’s life! ” muttered the postman, look- 
ing round the walls and seeming hardly able to be- 
lieve that he was in the warmth. “ We were nearly 
lost ! If it had not been for your light, I don’t know 
what would have happened. Goodness only knows 
when it will all be over! There’s no end to this 
dog’s life! Where have we come?” he asked, 
dropping his voice and raising his eyes to the sexton’s 
wife. 

“ To the Gulyaevsky Hill on General Kalinov- 
sky’s estate,” she answered, startled and blushing. 

“Do you hear, Stepan?” The postman turned 


12 


The Tales of Chekhov 


to the driver, who was w T edged in the doorway with 
a huge mail-bag on his shoulders. “ WeVe got to 
Gulyaevsky Hill.” 

“ Yes . . . we’re a long way out.” Jerking out 
these words like a hoarse sigh, the driver went out 
and soon after returned with another bag, then went 
out once more and this time brought the postman’s 
sword on a big belt, of the pattern of that long flat 
blade with which Judith is portrayed by the bedside 
of Holofernes in cheap woodcuts. Laying the bags 
along the wall, he went out into the outer room, sat 
down there and lighted his pipe. 

“ Perhaps you’d like some tea after your 
journey? ” Raissa inquired. 

“ How can we sit drinking tea? ” said the post- 
man, frowning. “ We must make haste and get 
warm, and then set off, or we shall be late for the 
mail train. We’ll stay ten minutes and then get 
on our way. Only be so good as to show us the 
way.” 

“ What an infliction it is, this weather I ” sighed 
Raissa. 

“ H’m, yes. . . . Who may you be? ” 

“We? We live here, by the church. . . . We 
belong to the clergy. . . . There lies my husband. 
Savely, get up and say good-evening ! This used to 
be a separate parish till eighteen months ago. Of 
course, when the gentry lived here there were more 
people, and it was worth while to have the services. 
But now the gentry have gone, and I need not tell 
you there’s nothing for the clergy to live on. The 
nearest village is Markovka, and that’s over three 


The Witch 


13 

miles away. Savely is on the retired list now, and 
has got the watchman’s job; he has to look after the 
church. . . .” 

And the postman was immediately informed that 
if Savely were to go to the General’s lady and ask 
her for a letter to the bishop, he would be given a 
good berth. “ But he doesn’t go to the General’s 
lady because he is lazy and afraid of people. We 
belong to the clergy all the same . . .” added 
Rai’ssa. 

“ What do you live on? ” asked the postman. 

“ There’s a kitchen garden and a meadow belong- 
ing to the church. Only we don’t get much from 
that,” sighed Raissa. “ The old skinflint, Father 
Nikodim, from the next village celebrates here on 
St. Nicolas’ Day in the winter and on St. Nicolas’ 
Day in the summer, and for that he takes almost all 
the crops for himself. There’s no one to stick up 
for us ! ” 

“ You are lying,” Savely growled hoarsely. 
“ Father Nikodim is a saintly soul, a luminary of 
the Church; and if he does take it, it’s the regula- 
tion!” 

“ You’ve a cross one! ” said the postman, with a 
grin. “ Have you been married long? ” 

“ It was three years ago the last Sunday before 
Lent. My father was sexton here in the old days, 
and when the time came for him to die, he went 
to the Consistory and asked them to send some un- 
married man to marry me that I might keep the 
place. So I married him.” 

“Aha, so you killed two birds with one stone! ” 


14 The Tales of Chekhov 

said the postman, looking at Savely’s back. “ Got 
wife and job together.” 

Savely wriggled his leg impatiently and moved 
closer to the wall. The postman moved away from 
the table, stretched, and sat down on the mail-bag. 
After a moment’s thought he squeezed the bags with 
his hands, shifted his sword to the other side, and 
lay down with one foot touching the floor. 

“ It’s a dog’s life,” he muttered, putting his hands 
behind his head and closing his eyes. “ I wouldn’t 
wish a wild Tatar such a life.” 

Soon everything was still. Nothing was audible 
except the sniffing of Savely and the slow, even 
breathing of the sleeping postman, who uttered a 
deep prolonged “ h-h-h ” at every breath. From 
time to time there was a sound like a creaking wheel 
in his throat, and his twitching foot rustled against 
the bag. 

Savely fidgeted under the quilt and looked round 
slowly. His wife was sitting on the stool, and with 
her hands pressed against her cheeks was gazing 
at the postman’s face. Her face was immovable, 
like the face of some one frightened and aston- 
ished. 

“Well, what are you gaping at?” Savely whis- 
pered angrily. 

“ What is it to you? Lie down! ” answered his 
wife without taking her eyes off the flaxen head. 

Savely angrily puffed all the air out of his chest 
and turned abruptly to the wall. Three minutes 
later he turned over restlessly again, knelt up on 
the bed, and with his hands on the pillow looked 


The Witch 


15 

askance at his wife. She was still sitting motion- 
less, staring at the visitor. Her cheeks were pale 
and her eyes were glowing with a strange fire. The 
sexton cleared his throat, crawled on his stomach off 
the bed, and going up to the postman, put a hand- 
kerchief over his face. # 

“ What’s that for? ” asked his wife. 

“ To keep the light out of his eyes.” 

“ Then put out the light! ” 

Savely looked distrustfully at his wife, put out 
his lips towards the lamp, but at once thought better 
of it and clasped his hands. 

“ Isn’t that devilish cunning? ” he exclaimed. 
“Ah! Is there any creature slyer than women- 
kind?” 

“Ah, you long-skirted devil!” hissed his wife, 
frowning with vexation. “ You wait a bit! ” 

And settling herself more comfortably, she stared 
at the postman again. 

It did not matter to her that his face was covered. 
She was not so much interested in his face as in his 
whole appearance, in the novelty of this man. His 
chest was broad and powerful, his hands were slender 
and well formed, and his graceful, muscular legs 
were much comelier than Savely’s stumps. There 
could be no comparison, in fact. 

“ Though I am a long-skirted devil,” Savely said 
after a brief interval, “ they’ve no business to sleep 
here. . . . It’s government work; we shall have to 
answer for keeping them. If you carry the letters, 
carry them, you can’t go to sleep. . . . Hey! you! ” 
Savely shouted into the outer room. “ You, driver. 


i6 


The Tales of Chekhov 


. . . What’s your name? Shall I show you the 
way? Get up; postmen mustn’t sleep! ” 

And Savely, thoroughly roused, ran up to the post- 
man and tugged him by the sleeve. 

“Hey, your honour, if you must go, go; and if 
you don’t, it’s not the thing. . . . Sleeping won’t 
do.” 

The postman jumped up, sat down, looked with 
blank eyes round the hut, and lay down again. 

“ But when are you going? ” Savely pattered 
away. “ That’s what the post is for — to get there 
in good time, do you hear? I’ll take you.” 

The postman opened his eyes. Warmed and re- 
laxed by his first sweet sleep, and not yet quite awake, 
he saw as through a mist the white neck and the 
immovable, alluring eyes of the sexton’s wife. He 
closed his eyes and smiled as though he had been 
dreaming it all. 

“ Come, how can you go in such weather! ” he 
heard a soft feminine voice; “ you ought to have a 
sound sleep and it would do you good! ” 

“And what about the post?” said Savely anx- 
iously. “ Who’s going to take the post? Are you 
going to take it, pray, you? ” 

The postman opened his eyes again, looked at 
the play of the dimples on Rai'ssa’s face, remem- 
bered where he was, and understood Savely. The 
thought that he had to go out into the cold dark- 
ness sent a chill shudder all down him, and he winced. 

“ I might sleep another five minutes,” he said, 
yawning. “ I shall be late, anyway. . . .” 

“ We might be just in time,” came a voice from 


The Witch 


17 

the outer room. “ All days are not alike; the train 
may be late for a bit of luck.” 

The postman got up, and stretching lazily began 
putting on his coat. 

Savely positively neighed with delight when he 
saw his visitors were getting*ready to go. 

“ Give us a hand,” the driver shouted to him as 
he lifted up a mail-bag. 

The sexton ran out and helped him drag the post- 
bags into the yard. The postman began undoing 
the knot in his hood. The sexton’s wife gazed into 
his eyes, and seemed trying to look right into his 
soul. 

“ You ought to have a cup of tea . . .” she said. 

“ I wouldn’t say no . . . but, you see, they’re 
getting ready,” he assented. “ We are late, any- 
way.” 

“ Do stay,” she whispered, dropping her eyes and 
touching him by the sleeve. 

The postman got the knot undone at last and 
flung the hood over his elbow, hesitating. He felt 
it comfortable standing by Rai'ssa. 

“What a . . . neck you’ve got! . . .” And he 
touched her neck with two fingers. Seeing that she 
did not resist, he stroked her neck and shoulders. 

“ I say, you are . . .” 

“You’d better stay . . . have some tea.” 

“Where are you putting it?” The driver’s 
voice could be heard outside. “ Lay it crossways.” 

“You’d better stay. . . . Hark how the wind 
howls.” 

And the postman, not yet quite awake, not yet 


i8 


The Tales of Chekhov 


quite able to shake off the intoxicating sleep of youth 
and fatigue, was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire 
for the sake of which mail-bags, postal trains . . . 
and all things in the world, are forgotten. He 
glanced at the door in a frightened way, as though 
he wanted to escape or hide himself, seized Raissa 
round the waist, and was just bending over the lamp 
to put out the light, when he heard the tramp of 
boots in the outer room, and the driver appeared in 
the doorway. Savely peeped in over his shoulder. 
The postman dropped his hands quickly and stood 
still as though irresolute. 

“ It’s all ready,” said the driver. The postman 
stood still for a moment, resolutely threw up his 
head as though waking up completely, and followed 
the driver out. Raissa was left alone. 

“ Come, get in and show us the way! ” she heard. 

One bell sounded languidly, then another, and the 
jingling notes in a long delicate chain floated away 
from the hut. 

When little by little they had died away, Raissa 
got up and nervously paced to and fro. At first 
she was pale, then she flushed all over. Her face 
was contorted with hate, her breathing was tremu- 
lous, her eyes gleamed with wild, savage anger, and, 
pacing up and down as in a cage, she looked like a 
tigress menaced with red-hot iron. For a moment 
she stood still and looked at her abode. Almost 
half of the room was filled up by the bed, which 
stretched the length of the whole wall and consisted 
of a dirty feather-bed, coarse grey pillows, a quilt, 
and nameless rags of various sorts. The bed was 


The Witch 


19 

a shapeless ugly mass which suggested the shock of 
hair that always stood up on Savely’s head whenever 
it occurred to him to oil it. From the bed to the 
door that led into the cold outer room stretched the 
dark stove surrounded by pots and hanging clouts. 
Everything, including the absent Savely himself, was 
dirty, greasy, and smutty to the last degree, so that 
it was strange to see a woman’s white neck and deli- 
cate skin in such surroundings. 

Rai'ssa ran up to the bed, stretched out her hands 
as though she wanted to fling it all about, stamp 
it underfoot, and tear it to shreds. But then, as 
though frightened by contact with the dirt, she leapt 
back and began pacing up and down again. 

When Savely returned two hours later, worn out 
and covered with snow, she was undressed and in 
bed. Her eyes were closed, but from the slight 
tremor that ran over her face he guessed that she 
was not asleep. On his way home he had vowed 
inwardly to wait till next day and not to touch her, 
but he could not resist a biting taunt at her. 

“ Your witchery was all in vain: he’s gone off,” 
he said, grinning with malignant joy. 

His wife remained mute, but her chin quivered. 
Savely undressed slowly, clambered over his wife, 
and lay down next to the wall. 

“ To-morrow I’ll let Father Nikodim know what 
sort of wife you are! ” he muttered, curling himself 
up. 

Rai'ssa turned her face to him and her eyes 
gleamed. 

“ The job’s enough for you, and you can look for 


20 


The Tales of Chekhov 


a wife in the forest, blast you ! ” she said. “ I am 
no wife for you, a clumsy lout, a slug-a-bed, God for- 
give me ! ” 

“ Come, come ... go to sleep ! ” 

“ How miserable I am! ” sobbed his wife. “ If 
it weren’t for you, I might have married a merchant 
or some gentleman! If it weren’t for you, I should 
love my husband now ! And you haven’t been buried 
in the snow, you haven’t been frozen on the high- 
road, you Herod ! ” 

Rai'ssa cried for a long time. At last she drew 
a deep sigh and was still. The storm still raged 
without. Something wailed in the stove, in the 
chimney, outside the walls, and it seemed to Savely 
that the wailing was within him, in his ears. This 
evening had completely confirmed him in his sus- 
picions about his wife. He no longer doubted that 
his wife, with the aid of the Evil One, controlled the 
winds and the post sledges. But to add to his grief, 
this mysteriousness, this supernatural, weird power 
gave the woman beside him a peculiar, incomprehen- 
sible charm of which he had not been conscious be- 
fore. The fact that in his stupidity he unconsciously 
threw a poetic glamour over her made her seem, as 
it were, whiter, sleeker, more unapproachable. 

“Witch!” he muttered indignantly. “Tfoo, 
horrid creature ! ” 

Yet, waiting till she was quiet and began breathing 
evenly, he touched her head with his finger . . . 
held her thick plait in his hand for a minute. She 
did not feel it. Then he grew bolder and stroked 
her neck. 


The Witch 


21 


“ Leave off ! ” she shouted, and prodded him on 
the nose with her elbow with such violence that he 
saw stars before his eyes. 

The pain in his nose was soon over, but the tor- 
ture in his heart remained. 




PEASANT WIVES 


PEASANT WIVES 


In the village of Reybuzh, just facing the church, 
stands a two-storeyed house with a stone foundation 
and an iron roof. In the lower storey the owner 
himself, Filip Ivanov Kashin, nicknamed Dyudya, 
lives with his family, and on the upper floor, where 
it is apt to be very hot in summer and very cold in 
winter, they put up government officials, merchants, 
or landowners, who chance to be travelling that way. 
Dyudya rents some bits of land, keeps a tavern on 
the highroad, does a trade in tar, honey, cattle, and 
jackdaws, and has already something like eight thou- 
sand roubles put by in the bank in the town. 

His elder son, Fyodor, is head engineer in the 
factory, and, as the peasants say of him, he has 
risen so high in the world that he is quite out of 
reach now. Fyodor’s wife, Sofya, a plain, ailing 
woman, lives at home at her father-in-law’s. She 
is for ever crying, and every Sunday she goes over 
to the hospital for medicine. Dyudya’s second son, 
the hunchback Alyoshka, is living at home at his 
father’s. He has only lately been married to Var- 
vara, whom they singled out for him from a poor 
family. She is a handsome young woman, smart 
and buxom. When officials or merchants put up at 
the house, they always insist on having Varvara to 
bring in the samovar and make their beds. 

25 


26 


The Tales of Chekhov 


One June evening when the sun was setting and 
the air was full of the smell of hay, of steaming 
dung-heaps and new milk, a plain-looking cart drove 
into Dyudya’s yard with three people in it: a man 
of about thirty in a canvas suit, beside him a little 
boy of seven or eight in a long black coat with big 
bone buttons, and on the driver’s seat a young fellow 
in a red shirt. 

The young fellow took out the horses and led them 
out into the street to walk them up and down a bit, 
while the traveller washed, said a prayer, turning 
towards the church, then spread a rug near the cart 
and sat down with the boy to supper. He ate with- 
out haste, sedately, and Dyudya, who had seen a 
good many travellers in his time, knew him from his 
manners for a businesslike man, serious and aware 
of his own value. 

Dyudya was sitting on the step in his waistcoat 
without a cap on, waiting for the visitor to speak 
first. He was used to hearing all kinds of stories 
from the travellers in the evening, and he liked 
listening to them before going to bed. His old wife, 
Afanasyevna, and his daughter-in-law Sofya, were 
milking in the cowshed. The other daughter-in-law, 
Varvara, was sitting at the open window of the up- 
per storey, eating sunflower seeds. 

“ The little chap will be your son, I’m thinking? ” 
Dyudya asked the traveller. 

“ No; adopted. An orphan. I took him for my 
soul’s salvation.” 

They got into conversation. The stranger 
seemed to be a man fond of talking and ready of 


Peasant Wives 


27 

speech, and Dyudya learned from him that he was 
from the town, was of the tradesman class, and had 
a house of his own, that his name was Matvey 
Savitch, that he was on his way now to look at some 
gardens that he was renting from some German 
colonists, and that the boy’s name was Kuzka. The 
evening was hot and close, no one felt inclined for 
sleep. When it was getting dark and pale stars be- 
gan to twinkle here and there in the sky, Matvey 
Savitch began to tell how he had come by Kuzka. 
Afanasyevna and Sofya stood a little way off, listen- 
ing. Kuzka had gone to the gate. 

“ It’s a complicated story, old man,” began Mat- 
vey Savitch, “ and if I were to tell you all just as it 
happened, it would take all night and more. Ten 
years ago in a little house in our street, next door to 
me, where now there’s a tallow and oil factory, there 
was living an old widow, Marfa Semyonovna Kap- 
luntsev, and she had two sons: one was a guard on 
the railway, but the other, Vasya, who was just my 
own age, lived at home with his mother. Old Kap- 
luntsev had kept five pair of horses and sent carriers 
all over the town; his widow had not given up the 
business, but managed the carriers as well as her 
husband had done, so that some days they would 
bring in as much as five roubles from their rounds. 

“ The young fellow, too, made a trifle on his own 
account. He used to breed fancy pigeons and sell 
them to fanciers; at times he would stand for hours 
on the roof, waving a broom in the air and whistling; 
his pigeons were right up in the clouds, but it wasn’t 
enough for him, and he’d want them to go higher 


28 


The Tales of Chekhov 


yet. Siskins and starlings, too, he used to catch, 
and he made cages for sale. All trifles, but, mind 
you, he’d pick up some ten roubles a month over such 
trifles. Well, as time went on, the old lady lost 
the use of her legs and took to her bed. In con- 
sequence of which event the house was left without a 
woman to look after it, and that’s for all the world 
like a man without an eye. The old lady bestirred 
herself and made up her mind to marry Vasya. 
They called in a matchmaker at once, the women 
got to talking of one thing and another, and Vasya 
went off to have a look at the girls. He picked out 
Mashenka, a widow’s daughter. They made up 
their minds without loss of time and in a week it 
was all settled. The girl was a little slip of a thing, 
seventeen, but fair-skinned and pretty-looking, and 
like a lady in all her ways; and a decent dowry with 
her, five hundred roubles, a cow, a bed. . . . Well, 
the old lady — it seemed as though she had known 
it was coming — three days after the wedding, de- 
parted to the Heavenly Jerusalem where is neither 
sickness nor sighing. The young people gave her a 
good funeral and began their life together. For 
just six months they got on splendidly, and then all 
of a sudden another misfortune. It never rains but 
it pours: Vasya was summoned to the recruiting of- 
fice to draw lots for the service. He was taken, poor 
chap, for a soldier, and not even granted exemption. 
They shaved his head and packed him off to Poland. 
It was God’s will; there was nothing to be done. 
When he said good-bye to his wife in the yard, he 


Peasant Wives 


29 

bore it all right; but as he glanced up at the hay-loft 
and his pigeons for the last time, he burst out crying. 
It was pitiful to see him. 

“At first Mashenka got her mother to stay with 
her, that she mightn’t be dull all alone; she stayed 
till the baby- — this very Kuzka here — was born, 
and then she went off to Oboyan to another married 
daughter’s and left Mashenka alone with the baby. 
There were five peasants — the carriers — a drunken 
saucy lot; horses, too, and dray-carts to see to, and 
then the fence would be broken or the soot afire in 
the chimney — jobs beyond a woman, and through 
our being neighbours, she got into the way of turning 
to me for every little thing. . . . Well, I’d go over, 
set things to rights, and give advice. . . . Naturally, 
not without going indoors, drinking a cup of tea and 
having a little chat with her. I was a young fellow, 
intellectual, and fond of talking on all sorts of sub- 
jects; she, too, was well-bred and educated. She 
was always neatly dressed, and in summer she walked 
out with a sunshade. Sometimes I would begin upon 
religion or politics with her, and she was flattered 
and would entertain me with tea and jam. ... In 
a word, not to make a long story of it, I must tell 
you, old man, a year had not passed before the 
Evil One, the enemy of all mankind, confounded me. 
I began to notice that any day I didn’t go to see her, 
I seemed out of sorts and dull. And I’d be con- 
tinually making up something that I must see her 
about: ‘ It’s high time,’ I’d say to myself, ‘ to put 
the double windows in for the winter,’ and the whole 


The Tales of Chekhov 


30 

day I’d idle away over at her place putting in the 
windows and take good care to leave a couple of 
them over for the next day too. 

“ 1 1 ought to count over Vasya’s pigeons, to see 
none of them have strayed,’ and so on. I used al- 
ways to be talking to her across the fence, and in the 
end I made a little gate in the fence so as not to have 
to go so far round. From womankind comes much 
evil into the world and every kind of abomination. 
Not we sinners only; even the saints themselves have 
been led astray by them. Mashenka did not try to 
keep me at a distance. Instead of thinking of her 
husband and being on her guard, she fell in love with 
me. I began to notice that she was dull without me, 
and was always walking to and fro by the fence look- 
ing into my yard through the cracks. 

“ My brains were going round in my head in a 
sort of frenzy. On Thursday in Holy Week I was 
going early in the morning — it was scarcely light — 
to market. I passed close by her gate, and the Evil 
One was by me — at my elbow. I looked — she 
had a gate with open trellis work at the top — and 
there she was, up already, standing in the middle of 
the yard, feeding the ducks. I could not restrain 
myself, and I called her name. She came up and 
looked at me through the trellis. . . . Her little face 
was white, her eyes soft and sleepy-looking. ... I 
liked her looks immensely, and I began paying her 
compliments, as though we were not at the gate, but 
just as one does on namedays, while she blushed, and 
laughed, and kept looking straight into my eyes with- 
out winking. ... I lost all sense and began to de- 


Peasant Wives 31 

clare my love to her. . . . She opened the gate, and 
from that morning we began to live as man and 
wife. . . 

The hunchback Alyoshka came into the yard from 
the street and ran out of breath into the house, not 
looking at any one. A minute later he ran out of 
the house with a concertina. Jingling some coppers 
in his pocket, and cracking sunflower seeds as he ran, 
he went out at the gate. 

“And who’s that, pray?” asked Matvey Sa- 
vitch. 

“ My son Alexey,” answered Dyudya. “ He’s 
off on a spree, the rascal. God has afflicted him 
with a hump, so we are not very hard on him.” 

“ And he’s always drinking with the other fellows, 
always drinking,” sighed Afanasyevna. “ Before 
Carnival we married him, thinking he’d be steadier, 
but there! he’s worse than ever.” 

“ It’s been no use. Simply keeping another man’s 
daughter for nothing,” said Dyudya. 

Somewhere behind the church they began to sing 
a glorious, mournful song. The words they could 
not catch and only the voices could be heard — two 
tenors and a bass. All were listening; there was 
complete stillness in the yard. . . . Two voices sud- 
denly broke off with a loud roar of laughter, but the 
third, a tenor, still sang on, and took so high a note 
that every one instinctively looked upwards, as 
though the voice had soared to heaven itself. 

Varvara came out of the house, and screening her 
eyes with her hand, as though from the sun, she 
looked towards the church. 


32 


The Tales of Chekhov 

“ It’s the priest’s sons with the schoolmaster,” she 
said. 

Again all the three voices began to sing together. 
Matvey Savitch sighed and went on: 

“ Well, that’s how it was, old man. Two years 
later we got a letter from Vasya from Warsaw. 
He wrote that he was being sent home sick. He 
was ill. By that time I had put all that foolish- 
ness out of my head, and I had a fine match picked 
out all ready for me, only I didn’t know how to break 
it off with my sweetheart. Every day I’d make up 
my mind to have it out with Mashenka, but I didn’t 
know how to approach her so as not to have a wom- 
an’s screeching about my ears. The letter freed my 
hands. I read it through with Mashenka; she 
turned white as a sheet, while I said to her : 4 Thank 

God; now,’ says I, 4 you’ll be a married woman 
again.’ But says she : 4 I’m not going to live with 

him.’ 4 Why, isn’t he your husband? ’ said I. 4 Is 
it an easy thing? ... I never loved him and I mar- 
ried him not of my own free will. My mother made 
me.’ 4 Don’t try to get out of it, silly,’ said I, 4 but 
tell me this: were you married to him in church or 
not? ’ 4 I was married,’ she said, 4 but it’s you that 

I love, and I will stay with you to the day of my 
death. Folks may jeer. I don’t care. . . .’ 4 You’re 
a Christian woman,’ said I, 4 and have read the 
Scriptures; what is written there? ’ ” 

44 Once married, with her husband she must live,” 
said Dyudya. 

4 4 4 Man and wife are one flesh. We have sinned,’ 
I said, 4 you and I, and it is enough; we must repent 


Peasant Wives 


33 

and fear God. We must confess it all to Vasya,’ 
said I; ‘ he’s a quiet fellow and soft — he won’t kill 
you. And indeed,’ said I, ‘ better to suffer torments 
in this world at the hands of your lawful master than 
to gnash your teeth at the dread Seat of Judgment.’ 
The wench wouldn’t listen; she stuck to her silly, 

‘ It’s you I love ! ’ and nothing more could I get out 
of her. 

“ Vasya came back on the Saturday before Trinity, 
early in the morning. From my fence I could see 
everything; he ran into the house, and came back a 
minute later with Kuzka in his arms, and he was 
laughing and crying all at once ; he was kissing Kuzka 
and looking up at the hay-loft, and hadn’t the heart 
to put the child down, and yet he was longing to go 
to his pigeons. He was always a soft sort of chap 
— sentimental. That day passed off very well, all 
quiet and proper. They had begun ringing the 
church bells for the evening service, when the thought 
struck me: ‘To-morrow’s Trinity Sunday; how is 
it they are not decking the gates and the fence with 
green? Something’s wrong,’ I thought. I went 
over to them. I peeped in, and there he was, sitting 
on the floor in the middle of the room, his eyes star- 
ing like a drunken man’s, the tears streaming down 
his cheeks and his hands shaking; he was pulling 
cracknels, necklaces, gingerbread nuts, and all sorts 
of little presents out of his bundle and flinging them 
on the floor. Kuzka — he was three years old — 
was crawling on the floor, munching the ginger- 
breads, while Mashenka stood by the stove, white 
and shivering all over, muttering: ‘ I’m not your 


The Tales of Chekhov 


34 

wife; I can’t live with you,’ and all sorts of foolish- 
ness. I bowed down at Vasya’s feet, and said: 
‘We have sinned against you, Vassily Maximitch; 
forgive us, for Christ’s sake ! ’ Then I got up and 
spoke to Mashenka: ‘You, Marya Semyonovna, 
ought now to wash Vassily Maximitch’s feet and 
drink the water. Do you be an obedient wife to him, 
and pray to God for me, that He in His mercy may 
forgive my transgression.’ It came to me like an 
inspiration from an angel of Heaven; I gave her sol- 
emn counsel and spoke with such feeling that my own 
tears flowed too. And so two days later Vasya 
comes to me: ‘ Matyusha,’ says he, ‘ I forgive you 
and my wife; God have mercy on you! She was a 
soldier’s wife, a young thing all alone; it was hard 
for her to be on her guard. She’s not the first, nor 
will she be the last. Only,’ he says, ‘ I beg you to 
behave as though there had never been anything be- 
tween you, and to make no sign, while I,’ says he, 

‘ will do my best to please her in every way, so that 
she may come to love me again.’ He gave me his 
hand on it, drank a cup of tea, and went away more 
cheerful. 

“ ‘ Well,’ thought I, ‘ thank God! ’ and I did feel 
glad that everything had gone off so well. But no 
sooner had Vasya gone out of the yard, when in came 
Mashenka. Ah! What I had to suffer ! She hung 
on my neck, weeping and praying: ‘ For God’s 
sake, don’t cast me off ; I can’t live without you ! ’ ” 

“ The vile hussy ! ” sighed Dyudya. 

“ I swore at her, stamped my foot, and dragging 
her into the passage, I fastened the door with the 


Peasant Wives 


35 

hook. ‘ Go to your husband,’ I cried. ‘ Don’t 
shame me before folks. Fear God! ’ And every 
day there was a scene of that sort. 

“ One morning I was standing in my yard near 
the stable cleaning a bridle. All at once I saw her 
running through the little gate into my yard, with 
bare feet, in her petticoat, and straight towards me; 
she clutched at the bridle, getting all smeared with 
the pitch, and shaking and weeping, she cried : ‘ I 

can’t stand him; I loathe him; I can’t bear it! If 
you don’t love me, better kill me ! ’ I was angry, and 
I struck her twice with the bridle, but at that instant 
Vasya ran in at the gate, and in a despairing voice 
he shouted: ‘Don’t beat her! Don’t beat her!’ 
But he ran up himself, and waving his arms, as 
though he were mad, he let fly with his fists at her 
with all his might, then flung her on the ground and 
kicked her. I tried to defend her, but he snatched 
up the reins and thrashed her with them, and all 
the while, like a colt’s whinny, he went: ‘ He — he 
— he!”’ 

“ I’d take the reins and let you feel them,” mut- 
tered Varvara, moving away; “ murdering our sister, 
the damned brutes ! . . 

“ Hold your tongue, you jade! ” Dyudya shouted 
at her. 

“ ‘ He — he — he ! ’ ” Matvey Savitch went on. 
“ A carrier ran out of his yard; I called to my work- 
man, and the three of us got Mashenka away from 
him and carried her home in our arms. The dis- 
grace of it! The same day I went over in the eve- 
ning to see how things were. She was lying in bed, 


36 The Tales of Chekhov 

all wrapped up in bandages, nothing but her eyes and 
nose to be seen; she was looking at the ceiling. I 
said: ‘Good-evening, Marya Semyonovna!’ She 
did not speak. And Vasya was sitting in the next 
room, his head in his hands, crying and saying: 

‘ Brute that I am! I’ve ruined my life! O God, 
let me die! ’ I sat for half an hour by Mashenka 
and gave her a good talking-to. I tried to frighten 
her a bit. ‘ The righteous,’ said I, ‘ after this life 
go to Paradise, but you will go to a Gehenna of fire, 
like all adulteresses. Don’t strive against your hus- 
band, go and lay yourself at his feet.’ But never a 
word from her; she didn’t so much as blink an eyelid, 
for all the world as though I were talking to a post. 
The next day Vasya fell ill with something like 
cholera, and in the evening I heard that he was dead. 
Well, so they buried him, and Mashenka did not go 
to the funeral; she didn’t care to show her shameless 
face and her bruises. And soon there began to be 
talk all over the district that Vasya had not died a 
natural death, that Mashenka had made away with 
him. It got to the ears of the police; they had 
Vasya dug up and cut open, and in his stomach they 
found arsenic. It was clear he had been poisoned; 
the police came and took Mashenka away, and with 
her the innocent Kuzka. They were put in prison. 
. . . The woman had gone too far — God punished 
her. . . . Eight months later they tried her. She 
sat, I remember, on a low stool, with a little white 
kerchief on her head, wearing a grey gown, and she 
was so thin, so pale, so sharp-eyed it made one sad 
to look at her. Behind her stood a soldier with a 


Peasant Wives 


37 

gun. She would not confess her guilt. Some in 
the court said she had poisoned her husband and 
others declared he had poisoned himself for grief. 
I was one of the witnesses. When they questioned 
me, I told the whole truth according to my oath. 
‘ Hers,’ said I, ‘ is the guilt. It’s no good to conceal 
it; she did not love her husband, and she had a will 
of her own. . . .’ The trial began in the morning 
and towards night they passed this sentence : to send 
her to hard labour in Siberia for thirteen years. 
After that sentence Mashenka remained three 
months longer in prison. I went to see her, and 
from Christian charity I took her a little tea and 
sugar. But as soon as she set eyes on me she began 
to shake all over, wringing her hands and mutter- 
ing: ‘Go away! go away!’ And Kuzka she 
clasped to her as though she were afraid I would 
take him away. ‘ See,’ said I, ‘ what you have come 
to! Ah, Masha, Masha! you would not listen to 
me when I gave you good advice, and now you must 
repent it. You are yourself to blame,’ said I; 
‘ blame yourself! ’ I was giving her good counsel, 
but she: ‘ Go away, go away! ’ huddling herself and 
Kuzka against the wall, and trembling all over. 

“ When they were taking her away to the chief 
town of our province, I walked by the escort as far 
as the station and slipped a rouble into her bundle 
for my soul’s salvation. But she did not get as far 
as Siberia. . . . She fell sick of fever and died in 
prison.” 

“ Live like a dog and you must die a dog’s death,” 
said Dyudya. 


The Tales of Chekhov 


38 

“ Kuzka was sent back home. ... I thought it 
over and took him to bring up. After all — though 
a convict’s child — still he was a living soul, a Chris- 
tian. ... I was sorry for him. I shall make him 
my clerk, and if I have no children of my own, I’ll 
make a merchant of him. Wherever I go now, I 
take him with me; let him learn his work.” 

All the while Matvey Savitch had been telling his 
story, Kuzka had sat on a little stone near the gate. 
His head propped in both hands, he gazed at the 
sky, and in the distance he looked in the dark like 
a stump of wood. 

“ Kuzka, come to bed,” Matvey Savitch bawled 
to him. 

“Yes, it’s time,” said Dyudya, getting up; he 
yawned loudly and added : 

“ Folks will go their own way, and that’s what 
comes of it.” 

Over the yard the moon was floating now in the 
heavens; she was moving one way, while the clouds 
beneath moved the other way; the clouds were dis- 
appearing into the darkness, but still the moon could 
be seen high above the yard. 

Matvey Savitch said a prayer, facing the church, 
and saying good-night, he lay down on the ground 
near his cart. Kuzka, too, said a prayer, lay down 
in the cart, and covered himself with his little over- 
coat; he made himself a little hole in the hay so as 
to be more comfortable, and curled up so that his 
elbows looked like knees. From the yard Dyudya 
could be seen lighting a candle in his room below, 


Peasant Wives 39 

putting on his spectacles and standing in the corner 
with a book. He was a long while reading and 
crossing himself. 

The travellers fell asleep. Afanasyevna and 
Sofya came up to the cart and began looking at 
Kuzka. 

“ The little orphan’s asleep,” said the old woman. 
“ He’s thin and frail, nothing but bones. No 
mother and no one to care for him properly.” 

“ My Grishutka must be two years older,” said 
Sofya. “ Up at the factory he lives like a slave 
without his mother. The foreman beats him, I 
dare say. When I looked at this poor mite just 
now, I thought of my own Grishutka, and my heart 
went cold within me.” 

A minute passed in silence. 

“ Doesn’t remember his mother, I suppose,” said 
the old woman. 

“ How could he remember? ” 

And big tears began dropping from Sofya’s eyes. 

“ He’s curled himself up like a cat,” she said, sob- 
bing and laughing with tenderness and sorrow. . . . 
“ Poor motherless mite ! ” 

Kuzka started and opened his eyes. He saw be- 
fore him an ugly, wrinkled, tear-stained face, and 
beside it another, aged and toothless, with a sharp 
chin and hooked nose, and high above them the in- 
finite sky with the flying clouds and the moon. He 
cried out in fright, and Sofya, too, uttered a cry; 
both were answered by the echo, and a faint stir 
passed over the stifling air; a watchman tapped 


The Tales of Chekhov 


40 

somewhere near, a dog barked. Matvey Savitch 
muttered something in his sleep and turned over on 
the other side. 

Late at night when Dyudya and the old woman 
and the neighbouring watchman were all asleep, 
Sofya went out to the gate and sat down on the 
bench. She felt stifled and her head ached from 
weeping. The street was a wide and long one; it 
stretched for nearly two miles to the right and as far 
to the left, and the end of it was out of sight. The 
moon was now not over the yard, but behind the 
church. One side of the street was flooded with 
moonlight, while the other side lay in black shadow. 
The long shadows of the poplars and the starling- 
cotes stretched right across the street, while the 
church cast a broad shadow, black and terrible that 
enfolded Dyudya’s gates and half his house. The 
street was still and deserted. From time to time 
the strains of music floated faintly .from the end of 
the street — Alyoshka, most likely, playing his con- 
certina. 

Someone moved in the shadow near the church en- 
closure, and Sofya could not make out whether it 
were a man or a cow, or perhaps merely a big bird 
rustling in the trees. But then a figure stepped out 
of the shadow, halted, and said something in a 
man’s voice, then vanished down the turning by the 
church. A little later, not three yards from the 
gate, another figure came into sight; it walked 
straight from the church to the gate and stopped 
short, seeing Sofya on the bench. 

“ Varvara, is that you? ” said Sofya. 


Peasant Wives 


41 


“ And if it were ? ” 

It was Varvara. She stood still a minute, then 
came up to the bench and sat down. 

“ Where have you been? ” asked Sofya. 

Varvara made no answer. 

“You’d better mind you don’t get into trouble 
with such goings-on, my girl,” said Sofya. “ Did 
you hear how Mashenka was kicked and lashed with 
the reins? You’d better look out, or they’ll treat 
you the same.” 

“Well, let them!” 

Varvara laughed into her kerchief and whis- 
pered : 

“ I have just been with the priest’s son.” 

“ Nonsense ! ” 

“I have!” 

“ It’s a sin! ” whispered Sofya. 

“Well, let it be. . . . What do I care? If it’s 
a sin, then it is a sin, but better be struck dead by 
thunder than live like this. I’m young and strong, 
and I’ve a filthy crooked hunchback for a husband, 
worse than Dyudya himself, curse him! When I 
was a girl, I hadn’t bread to eat, or a shoe to my 
foot, and to get away from that wretchedness I was 
tempted by Alyoshka’s money, and got caught like 
a fish in a net, and I’d rather have a viper for my 
bedfellow than that scurvy Alyoshka. And what’s 
your life? It makes me sick to look at it. Your 
Fyodor sent you packing from the factory and he’s 
taken up with another woman. They have robbed 
you of your boy and made a slave of him. You 
work like a horse, and never hear a kind word. I’d 


The Tales of Chekhov 


42 

rather pine all my days an old maid, I’d rather get 
half a rouble from the priest’s son, I’d rather beg 
my bread, or throw myself into the well. . . 

“ It’s a sin! ” whispered Sofya again. 

“ Well, let it be.” 

Somewhere behind the church the same three 
voices, two tenors and a bass, began singing again 
a mournful song. And again the words could not 
be distinguished. 

“ They are not early to bed,” Varvara said, 
laughing. 

And she began telling in a whisper of her mid- 
night walks with the priest’s son, and of the stories 
he had told her, and of his comrades, and of the fun 
she had with the travellers who stayed in the house. 
The mournful song stirred a longing for life and 
freedom. Sofya began to laugh; she thought it sin- 
ful and terrible and sweet to hear about, and she felt 
envious and sorry that she, too, had not been a sin- 
ner when she was young and pretty. 

In the churchyard they heard twelve strokes 
beaten on the watchman’s board. 

“ It’s time we were asleep,” said Sofya, getting up, 
“ or, maybe, we shall catch it from Dyudya.” 

They both went softly into the yard. 

“ I went away without hearing what he was tell- 
ing about Mashenka,” said Varvara, making her- 
self a bed under the window. 

“ She died in prison, he said. She poisoned her 
husband.” 

Varvara lay down beside Sofya a while, and said 
softly: 


Peasant Wives 43 

“ Pd make away with my Alyoshka and never 
regret it.” 

u You talk nonsense; God forgive you.” 

When Sofya was just dropping asleep, Varvara, 
coming close, whispered in her ear: 

“ Let us get rid of Dyudya and Alyoshka ! ” 

Sofya started and said nothing. Then she 
opened her eyes and gazed a long while steadily at 
the sky. 

“ People would find out,” she said. 

“ No, they wouldn’t. Dyudya’s an old man, it’s 
time he did die; and they’d say Alyoshka died of 
drink.” 

“ I’m afraid . . . God would chastise us.” 

“ Well, let Him. . . .” 

Both lay awake thinking in silence. 

“ It’s cold,” said Sofya, beginning to shiver all 
over. “ It will soon be morning. . . . Are you 
asleep? ” 

“ No. . . . Don’t you mind what I say, dear,” 
whispered Varvara; “ I get so mad with the damned 
brutes, I don’t know what I do say. Go to sleep, or 
it will be daylight directly. . * . Go to sleep.” 

Both were quiet and soon they fell asleep. 

Earlier than all woke the old woman. She 
waked up Sofya and they went together into the 
cowshed to milk the cows. The hunchback Aly- 
oshka came in hopelessly drunk without his com 
certina; his breast and knees had been in the dust 
and straw — he must have fallen down in the road. 
Staggering, he went into the cowshed, and without 
undressing he rolled into a sledge and began to snore 


The Tales of Chekhov 


44 

at once. When first the crosses on the church and 
then the windows were flashing in the light of the 
rising sun, and shadows stretched across the yard 
over the dewy grass from the trees and the top of the 
well, Matvey Savitch jumped up and began hurrying 
about : 

“ Kuzka ! get up ! ” he shouted. “ It’s time to 
put in the horses! Look sharp! ” 

The bustle of morning was beginning. A young 
Jewess in a brown gown with flounces led a horse into 
the yard to drink. The pulley of the well creaked 
plaintively, the bucket knocked as it went down. . . . 

Kuzka, sleepy, tired, covered with dew, sat up 
in the cart, lazily putting on his little overcoat, and 
listening to the drip of the water from the bucket 
into the well as he shivered with the cold. 

“Auntie!” shouted Matvey Savitch to Sofya, 
“ tell my lad to hurry up and to harness the 
horses ! ” 

And Dyudya at the same instant shouted from 
the window : 

“ Sofya, take a farthing from the Jewess for the 
horse’s drink! They’re always in here, the mangy 
creatures ! ” 

In the street sheep were running up and down, 
baaing; the peasant women were shouting at the 
shepherd, while he played his pipes, cracked his 
whip, or answered them in a thick sleepy bass. 
Three sheep strayed into the yard, and not finding 
the gate again, pushed at the fence. 

Varvara was waked by the noise, and bundling 
her bedding up in her arms, she went into the house. 


Peasant Wives 


45 

“ You might at least drive the sheep out! ” the old 
woman bawled after her, 14 my lady! ” 

“I dare say! As if I were going to slave for 
you Herods!” muttered Varvara, going into the 
house. 

Dyudya came out of the house with his accounts in 
his hands, sat down on the step, and began reckon- 
ing how much the traveller owed him for the night’s 
lodging, oats, and watering his horses. 

44 You charge pretty heavily for the oats, my good 
man,” said Matvey Savitch. 

44 If it’s too much, don’t take them. There’s no 
compulsion, merchant.” 

When the travellers were ready to start, they 
were detained for a minute. Kuzka had lost his 
cap. 

“Little swine, where did you put it?” Matvey 
Savitch roared angrily. “ Where is it? ” 

Kuzka’s face was working with terror; he ran up 
and down near the cart, and not finding it there, ran 
to the gate and then to the shed. The old woman 
and Sofya helped him look. 

“ I’ll pull your ears off! ” yelled Matvey Savitch. 
44 Dirty brat!” 

The cap was found at the bottom of the cart. 

Kuzka brushed the hay off it with his sleeve, put 
it on, and timidly he crawled into the cart, still with 
an expression of terror on his face as though he 
were afraid of a blow from behind. 

Matvey Savitch crossed himself. The driver 
gave a tug at the reins and the cart rolled out of 
the yard. 



THE POST 






THE POST 


It was three o’clock in the night. The postman, 
ready to set off, in his cap and his coat, with a rusty 
sword in his hand, was standing near the door, wait- 
ing for the driver to finish putting the mail bags into 
the cart which had just been brought round with 
three horses. The sleepy postmaster sat at his 
table, which was like a counter; he was filling up 
a form and saying: 

“ My nephew, the student, wants to go to the 
station at once. So look here, Ignatyev, let him 
get into the mail cart and take him with you to the 
station: though it is against the regulations to take 
people with the mail, what’s one to do? It’s better 
for him to drive with you free than for me to hire 
horses for him.” 

“ Ready! ” they heard a shout from the yard. 

“ Well, go then, and God be with you,” said the 
postmaster. “ Which driver is going? ” 

“ Semyon Glazov.” 

“ Come, sign the receipt.” 

The postman signed the receipt and went out. 
At the entrance of the post-office there was the dark 
outline of a cart and three horses. The horses 
were standing still except that one of the tracehorses 
kept uneasily shifting from one leg to the other and 
tossing its head, making the bell clang from time to 
49 


The Tales of Chekhov 


50 

time. The cart with the mail bags looked like a 
patch of darkness. Two silhouettes were moving 
lazily beside it: the student with a portmanteau in 
his hand and a driver. The latter was smoking a 
short pipe; the light of the pipe moved about in 
the darkness, dying away and flaring up again; for 
an instant it lighted up a bit of a sleeve, then a 
shaggy moustache and big copper-red nose, then 
stern-looking, overhanging eyebrows. The postman 
pressed down the mail bags with his hands, laid his 
sword on them and jumped into the cart. The stu- 
dent clambered irresolutely in after him, and acci- 
dentally touching him with his elbow, said timidly 
and politely: “ I beg your pardon.” 

The pipe went out. The postmaster came out 
of the post-office just as he was, in his waistcoat and 
slippers; shrinking from the night dampness and 
clearing his throat, he walked beside the cart and 
said: 

“Well, God speed! Give my love to your 
mother, Mihailo. Give my love to them all. And 
you, Ignatyev, mind you don’t forget to give the 
parcel to Bystretsov. . . . Off ! ” 

The driver took the reins in one hand, blew his 
nose, and, arranging the seat under himself, clicked 
to the horses. 

“ Give them my love,” the postmaster repeated. 

The big bell clanged something to the little bells, 
the little bells gave it a friendly answer. The cart 
squeaked, moved. The big bell lamented, the little 
bells laughed. Standing up in his seat the driver 
lashed the restless tracehorse twice, and the cart 


The Post 


51 

rumbled with a hollow sound along the dusty road. 
The little town was asleep. Houses and trees stood 
black on each side of the broad street, and not a light 
was to be seen. Narrow clouds stretched here and 
there over the star-spangled sky, and where the 
dawn would soon be coming there was a narrow 
crescent moon; but neither the stars, of which there 
were many, nor the half-moon, which looked white, 
lighted up the night air. It was cold and damp, 
and there was a smell of autumn. 

The student, who thought that politeness required 
him to talk affably to a man who had not refused to 
let him accompany him, began: 

“ In summer it would be light at this time, but 
now there is not even a sign of the dawn. Summer 
is over ! ” 

The student looked at the sky and went on : 

“ Even from the sky one can see that it is autumn. 
Look to the right. Do you see three stars side by 
side in a straight line? That is the constellation of 
Orion, which, in our hemisphere, only becomes vis- 
ible in September.” 

The postman, thrusting his hands into his sleeves 
and retreating up to his ears into his coat collar, did 
not stir and did not glance at the sky. Apparently 
the constellation of Orion did not interest him. He 
was accustomed to see the stars, and probably he 
had long grown weary of them. The student 
paused for a while and then said : 

“ It’s cold ! It’s time for the dawn to begin. 
Do you know what time the sun rises? ” 

“What?” 


52 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“ What time does the sun rise now? ” 

“ Between five and six,” said the driver. 

The mail cart drove out of the town. Now noth- 
ing could be seen on either side of the road but the 
fences of kitchen gardens and here and there a soli- 
tary willow-tree; everything in front of them was 
shrouded in darkness. Here in the open country 
the half-moon looked bigger and the stars shone 
more brightly. Then came a scent of dampness; the 
postman shrank further into his collar, the student 
felt an unpleasant chill first creeping about his feet, 
then over the mail bags, over his hands and his face. 
The horses moved more slowly; the bell was mute as 
though it were frozen. There was the sound of the 
splash of water, and stars reflected in the water 
danced under the horses’ feet and round the wheels. 

But ten minutes later it became so dark that nei- 
ther the stars nor the moon could be seen. The 
mail cart had entered the forest. Prickly pine 
branches were continually hitting the student on his 
cap and a spider’s web settled on his face. Wheels 
and hoofs knocked against huge roots, and the mail 
cart swayed from side to side as though it were 
drunk. 

“ Keep to the road,” said the postman angrily. 
“Why do you run up the edge? My face is 
scratched all over by the twigs ! Keep more to the 
right ! ” 

But at that point there was nearly an accident. 
The cart suddenly bounded as though in the throes 
of a convulsion, began trembling, and, with a creak, 
lurched heavily first to the right and then to the left, 


The Post 


53 

and at a fearful pace dashed along the forest track. 
The horses had taken fright at something and 
bolted. 

“Wo! wo!” the driver cried in alarm. “Wo 
. . . you devils ! ” 

The student, violently shaken, bent forward and 
tried to find something to catch hold of so as to keep 
his balance and save himself from being thrown out, 
but the leather mail bags were slippery, and the 
driver, whose belt the student tried to catch at, was 
himself tossed up and down and seemed every mo- 
ment on the point of flying out. Through the rattle 
of the wheels and the creaking of the cart they heard 
the sword fall with a clank on the ground, then a 
little later something fell with two heavy thuds be- 
hind the mail cart. 

“Wo!” the driver cried in a piercing voice, 
bending backwards. “ Stop ! ” 

The student fell on his face and bruised his fore- 
head against the driver’s seat, but was at once tossed 
back again and knocked his spine violently against 
the back of the cart. 

“I am falling!” was the thought that flashed 
through his mind, but at that instant the horses 
dashed out of the forest into the open, turned 
sharply to the right, and rumbling over a bridge of 
logs, suddenly stopped dead, and the suddenness of 
this halt flung the student forward again. 

The driver and the student were both breathless. 
The postman was not in the cart. He had been 
thrown out, together with his sword, the student’s 
portmanteau, and one of the mail bags. 


54 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“Stop, you rascal! Sto-op!” they heard him 
shout from the forest. “You damned black- 
guard ! ” he shouted, running up to the cart, and 
there was a note of pain and fury in his tearful voice. 
“You anathema, plague take you!” he roared,, 
dashing up to the driver and shaking his fist at him. 

“ What a to-do ! Lord have mercy on us ! ” mut- 
tered the driver in a conscience-stricken voice, setting 
right something in the harness at the horses’ heads. 
“ It’s all that devil of a tracehorse. Cursed filly; 
it is only a week since she has run in harness. She 
goes all right, but as soon as we go down hill there 
is trouble ! She wants a touch or two on the nose, 
then she wouldn’t play about like this. . . . Stea- 
eady! Damn!” 

While the driver was setting the horses to rights 
and looking for the portmanteau, the mail bag, and 
the sword on the road, the postman in a plaintive 
voice shrill with anger ejaculated oaths. After re- 
placing the luggage the driver for no reason what- 
ever led the horses for a hundred paces, grumbled 
at the restless tracehorse, and jumped up on the box. 

When his fright was over the student felt amused 
and good-humoured. It was the first time in his life 
that he had driven by night in a mail cart, and the 
shaking he had just been through, the postman’s hav- 
ing been thrown out, and the pain in his own back 
struck him as interesting adventures. He lighted a 
cigarette and said with a laugh : 

“ Why you know, you might break your neck like 
that! I very nearly flew out, and I didn’t even no- 


The Post 


55 

tice you had been thrown out. I can fancy what it 
is like driving in autumn ! ” 

The postman did not speak. 

“ Have you been going with the post for long? ” 
the student asked. 

“ Eleven years.” 

“ Oho ; every day? ” 

“ Yes, every day. I take this post and drive back 
again at once. Why? ” 

Making the journey every day, he must have had 
a good many interesting adventures in eleven years. 
On bright summer and gloomy autumn nights, or 
in winter when a ferocious snowstorm whirled howl- 
ing round the mail cart, it must have been hard to 
avoid feeling frightened and uncanny. No doubt 
more than once the horses had bolted, the mail cart 
had stuck in the mud, they had been attacked by 
highwaymen, or had lost their way in the bliz-' 
zard. . . . 

“ I can fancy what adventures you must have had 
in eleven years!” said the student. “I expect it 
must be terrible driving? ” , 

He said this and expected that the postman would 
tell him something, but the latter preserved a sullen 
silence and retreated into his collar. Meanwhile it 
began to get light. The sky changed colour imper- 
ceptibly; it still seemed dark, but by now the horses 
and the driver and the road could be seen. The 
crescent moon looked bigger and bigger, and the 
cloud that stretched below it, shaped like a cannon 
in a gun-carriage, showed a faint yellow on its lower 


The Tales of Chekhov 


56 

edge. Soon the postman’s face was visible. It 
was wet with dew, grey and rigid as the face of a 
corpse. An expression of dull, sullen anger was 
set upon it, as though the postman were still in pain 
and still angry with the driver. 

“Thank God it is daylight!” said the student, 
looking at his chilled and angry face. “ I am quite 
frozen. The nights are cold in September, but as 
soon as the sun rises it isn’t cold. Shall we soon 
reach the station? ” 

The postman frowned and made a wry face. 

“ How fond you are of talking, upon my word! ” 
he said. “ Can’t you keep quiet when you are trav- 
elling?” 

The student was confused, and did not approach 
him again all the journey. The morning came on 
rapidly. The moon turned pale and melted away 
into the dull grey sky, the cloud turned yellow all 
over, the stars grew dim, but the east was still cold- 
looking and the same colour as the rest of the sky, so 
that one could hardly believe the sun was hidden 
in it. 

The chill of the morning and the surliness of the 
postman gradually infected the student. He looked 
apathetically at the country around him, waited for 
the warmth of the sun, and thought of nothing but 
how dreadful and horrible it must be for the poor 
trees and the grass to endure the cold nights. The 
sun rose dim, drowsy, and cold. The tree-tops were 
not gilded by the rays of the rising sun, as usually 
described, the sunbeams did not creep over the 
earth and there was no sign of joy in the flight of the 


The Post 


57 

sleepy birds. The cold remained just the same now 
that the sun was up as it had been in the night. 

The student looked drowsily and ill-humouredly 
at the curtained windows of a mansion by which 
the mail cart drove. Behind those windows, he 
thought, people were most likely enjoying their 
soundest morning sleep not hearing the bells, nor 
feeling the cold, nor seeing the postman’s angry 
face; and if the bell did wake some young lady, she 
would turn over on the other side, smile in the ful- 
ness of her warmth and comfort, and, drawing up 
her feet and putting her hand under her cheek, 
would go off to sleep more soundly than ever. 

The student looked at the pond which gleamed 
near the house and thought of the carp and the pike 
which find it possible to live in cold water. . . . 

“ It’s against the regulations to take anyone with 
the post. . . .” the postman said unexpectedly. 
“ It’s not allowed ! And since it is not allowed, peo- 
ple have no business ... to get in. . . . Yes. It 
makes no difference to me, it’s true, only I don’t like 
it, and I don’t wish it.” 

“ Why didn’t you say so before, if you don’t 
like it?” 

The postman made no answer but still had an un- 
friendly, angry expression. When, a little later, 
the horses stopped at the entrance of the station the 
student thanked him and got out of the cart. The 
mail train had not yet come in. A long goods train 
stood in a siding; in the tender the engine driver and 
his assistant, with faces wet with dew, were drinking 
tea from a dirty tin teapot. The carriages, the 


58 The Tales of Chekhov 

platforms, the seats were all wet and cold. Until 
the train came in the student stood at the buffet 
drinking tea while the postman, with his hands thrust 
up his sleeves and the same look of anger still on 
his face, paced up and down the platform in soli- 
tude, staring at the ground under his feet. 

With whom was he angry? Was it with people, 
with poverty, with the autmn nights ? 


THE NEW VILLA 


THE NEW VILLA 


I 

Two miles from the village of Obrutchanovo a huge 
bridge was being built. From the village, which 
stood up high on the steep river-bank, its trellis-like 
skeleton could be seen, and in foggy weather and on 
still winter days, when its delicate iron girders and 
all the scaffolding around was covered with hoar 
frost, it presented a picturesque and even fantastic 
spectacle. Kutcherov, the engineer who was build- 
ing the bridge, a stout, broad-shouldered, bearded 
man in a soft crumpled cap drove through the vil- 
lage in his racing droshky or his open carriage. 
Now and then on holidays navvies working on the 
bridge would come to the village; they begged for 
alms, laughed at the women, and sometimes carried 
off something. But that was rare ; as a rule the days 
passed quietly and peacefully as though no bridge- 
building were going on, and only in the evening, 
when camp fires gleamed near the bridge, the wind 
faintly wafted the songs of the navvies. And by 
day there was sometimes the mournful clang of 
metal, don-don-don. 

It happened that the engineer’s wife came to see 
him. She was pleased with the river-banks and 
the gorgeous view over the green valley with trees, 
61 


62 


The Tales of Chekhov 


churches, flocks, and she began begging her husband 
to buy a small piece of ground and to build them a 
cottage on it. Her husband agreed. They bought 
sixty acres of land, and on the high bank in a field, 
where in earlier days the cows of Obrutchanovo used 
to wander, they built a pretty house of two storeys 
with a terrace and a verandah, with a tower and a 
flagstaff on which a flag fluttered on Sundays — they 
built it in about three months, and then all the winter 
they were planting big trees, and when spring came 
and everything began to be green there were already 
avenues to the new house, a gardener and two 
labourers in white aprons were digging near it, there 
was a little fountain, and a globe of looking-glass 
flashed so brilliantly that it was painful to look at. 
The house had already been named the New Villa. 

On a bright, warm morning at the end of May 
two horses were brought to Obrutchanovo to the vil- 
lage blacksmith, Rodion Petrov. They came from 
the New Villa. The horses were sleek, graceful 
beasts, as white as snow, and strikingly alike. 

“Perfect swans!” said Rodion, gazing at them 
with reverent admiration. 

His wife Stepanida, his children and grandchil- 
dren came out into the street to look at them. By 
degrees a crowd collected. The Lytchkovs, father 
and son, both men with swollen faces and entirely 
beardless, came up bareheaded. Kozov, a tall, thin 
old man with a long, narrow beard, came up leaning 
on a stick with a crook handle : he kept winking with 
his crafty eyes and smiling ironically as though he 
knew something. 


The New Villa 


63 

“ It’s only that they are white; what is there in 
them? ” he said. 41 Put mine on oats, and they will 
be just as sleek. They ought to be in a plough and 
with a whip, too. . . 

The coachman simply looked at him with dis- 
dain, but did not utter a word. And afterwards, 
while they were blowing up the fire at the forge, the 
coachman talked while he smoked cigarettes. The 
peasants learned from him various details: his em- 
ployers were wealthy people; his mistress, Elena 
Ivanovna, had till her marriage lived in Moscow 
in a poor way as a governess; she was kind-hearted, 
compassionate, and fond of helping the poor. On 
the new estate, he told them, they were not going to 
plough or to sow, but simply to live for their pleas- 
ure, live only to breathe the fresh air. When he 
had finished and led the horses back a crowd of boys 
followed him, the dogs barked, and Kozov, looking 
after him, winked sarcastically. 

44 Landowners, too-oo ! ” he said. 44 They have 
built a house and set up horses, but I bet they are 
nobodies — landowners, too-oo.” 

Kozov for some reason took a dislike from the 
first to the new house, to the white horses, and to 
the handsome, well-fed coachman’. Kozov was a 
solitary man, a widower; he had a dreary life (he 
was prevented from working by a disease which he 
sometimes called a rupture and sometimes worms) ; 
he was maintained by his son, who worked at a con- 
fectioner’s in Harkov and sent him money; and from 
early morning till evening he sauntered at leisure 
about the river or about the village ; if he saw, for 


The Tales of Chekhov 


64 

instance, a peasant carting a log, or fishing, he would 
say: “That log’s dry wood — it is rotten,” or, 
“ They won’t bite in weather like this.” In times 
of drought he would declare that there would not be 
a drop of rain till the frost came; and when the rains 
came he would say that everything would rot in the 
fields, that everything was ruined. And as he said 
these things he would wink as though he knew 
something. 

At the New Villa they burned Bengal lights and 
sent up fireworks in the evenings, and a sailing-boat 
with red lanterns floated by Obrutchanovo. One 
morning the engineer’s wife, Elena Ivanovna, and 
her little daughter drove to the village in a carriage 
with yellow wheels and a pair of dark bay ponies; 
both mother and daughter were wearing broad- 
brimmed straw hats, bent down over their ears. 

This was exactly at the time when they were 
carting manure, and the blacksmith Rodion, a tall, 
gaunt old man, bareheaded and barefooted, was 
standing near his dirty and repulsive-looking cart 
and, flustered, looked at the ponies, and it was 
evident by his face that he had never seen such little 
horses before. 

“ The Kutcherov lady has come ! ” was whispered 
around. “ Look, the Kutcherov lady has come ! ” 

Elena Ivanovna looked at the huts as though she 
were selecting one, and then stopped at the very 
poorest, at the windows of which there were so many 
children’s heads — flaxen, red, and dark. Stepan- 
ida, Rodion’s wife, a stout woman, came running out 
of the hut; her kerchief slipped off her grey head; 


The New Villa 65 

she looked at the carriage facing the sun, and her face 
smiled and wrinkled up as though she were blind. 

“ This is for your children,” said Elena Ivanovna, 
and she gave her three roubles. 

Stepanida suddenly burst into tears and bowed 
down to the ground. Rodion, too, flopped to the 
ground, displaying his brownish bald head, and as 
he did so he almost caught his wife in the ribs with 
the fork. Elena Ivanovna was overcome with con- 
fusion and drove back. 


II 

The Lytchkovs, father and son, caught in their 
meadows two cart-horses, a pony, and a broad-faced 
Aalhaus bull-calf, and with the help of red-headed 
Volodka, son of the blacksmith Rodion, drove them 
to the village. They called the village elder, col- 
lected witnesses, and went to look at the damage. 

“ All right, let ’em! ” said Kozov, winking, “ le-et 
’em ! Let them get out of it if they can, the en- 
gineers ! Do you think there is no such thing as 
law? All right! Send for the police inspector, 
draw up a statement! . . .” 

“ Draw up a statement,” repeated Volodka. 

“I don’t want to let this pass!” shouted the 
younger Lytchkov. He shouted louder and louder, 
and his beardless face seemed to be more and more 
swollen. “ They’ve set up a nice fashion ! Leave 
them free, and they will ruin all the meadows! 
You’ve no sort of right to ill-treat people! We are 
not serfs now! ” 


66 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“ We are not serfs now! ” repeated Volodka. 

“ We got on all right without a bridge,” said the 
elder Lytchkov gloomily; “we did not ask for it. 
What do we want a bridge for? We don’t want 
it!” 

“ Brothers, good Christians, we cannot leave it 
like this ! ” 

“ All right, let ’em ! ” said Kozov, winking. 
“ Let them get out of it if they can! Landowners, 
indeed ! ” 

They went back to the village, and as they walked 
the younger Lytchkov beat himself on the breast 
with his fist and shouted all the way, and Volodka 
shouted, too, repeating his words. And meanwhile 
quite a crowd had gathered in the village round the 
thoroughbred bull-calf and the horses. The bull- 
calf was embarrassed and looked up from under 
his brows, but suddenly lowered his muzzle to the 
ground and took to his heels, kicking up his hind 
legs; Kozov was frightened and waved his stick at 
him, and they all burst out laughing. Then they 
locked up the beasts and waited. 

In the evening the engineer sent five roubles for 
the damage, and the two horses, the pony and the 
bull-calf, without being fed or given water, returned 
home, their heads hanging with a guilty air as though 
they were convicted criminals. 

On getting the five roubles the Lytchkovs, father 
and son, the village elder and Volodka, punted over 
the river in a boat and went to a hamlet on the other 
side where there was a tavern, and there had a long 
carousal. Their singing and the shouting of the 


The New Villa 


67 

younger Lytchkov could be heard from the village. 
Their women were uneasy and did not sleep all 
night Rodion did not sleep either. 

“ It’s a bad business,” he said, sighing and turning 
from side to side. “ The gentleman will be angry, 
and then there will be trouble. . . . They have in- 
sulted the gentleman. . . . Oh, they’ve insulted him. 
It’s a bad business. . . 

It happened that the peasants, Rodion amongst 
them, went into their forest to divide the clearings 
for mowing, and as they were returning home they 
were met by the engineer. He was wearing a red 
cotton shirt and high boots; a setter dog with its 
long tongue hanging out, followed behind him. 

“ Good-day, brothers,” he said. 

The peasants stopped and took off their hats. 

“ I have long wanted to have a talk with you, 
friends,” he went on. “ This is what it is. Ever 
since the early spring your cattle have been in my 
copse and garden every day. Everything is 
trampled down; the pigs have rooted up the 
meadow, are ruining everything in the kitchen gar- 
den, and all the undergrowth in the copse is de- 
stroyed. There is no getting on with your herds- 
men; one asks them civilly, and they are rude. 
Damage is done on my estate every day and I do 
nothing — I don’t fine you or make a complaint; 
meanwhile you impounded my horses and my bull 
calf and exacted five roubles. Was that right? 
Is that neighbourly? ” he went on, and his face was 
so soft and persuasive, and his expression was not 
forbidding. “ Is that the way decent people be- 


68 


The Tales of Chekhov 


have? A week ago one of your people cut down 
two oak saplings in my copse. You have dug up 
the road to Eresnevo, and now I have to go two 
miles round. Why do you injure me at every step? 
What harm have 1 done you? For God’s sake, tell 
me ! My wife and I do our utmost to live with you 
in peace and harmony; we help the peasants as we 
can. My wife is a kind, warm-hearted woman; she 
never refuses you help. That is her dream — to be 
of use to you and your children. You reward us 
with evil for our good. You are unjust, my friends. 
Think of that. I ask you earnestly to think it over. 
We treat you humanely; repay us in the same coin.” 

He turned and went away. The peasants stood 
a little longer, put on their caps and walked away. 
Rodion, who always understood everything that was 
said to him in some peculiar way of his own, heaved 
a sigh and said : 

“We must pay. 4 Repay in coin, my friends’ 
... he said.” 

They walked to the village in silence. On reach- 
ing home Rodion said his prayer, took off his boots, 
and sat down on the bench beside his wife. Stepan- 
ida and he always sat side by side when they were at 
home, and always walked side by side in the street; 
they ate and they drank and they slept always to- 
gether, and the older they grew the more they loved 
one another. It was hot and crowded in their hut, 
and there were children everywhere — on the floors, 
in the windows, on the stove. ... In spite of her 
advanced years Stepanida was still bearing children, 
and now, looking at the crowd of children, it was 


The New Villa 


69 

hard to distinguish which were Rodion’s and which 
were Volodka’s. Volodka’s wife, Lukerya, a plain 
young woman with prominent eyes and a nose like 
the beak of a bird, was kneading dough in a tub; 
Volodka was sitting on the stove with his legs hang- 
ing. 

“ On the road near Nikita’s buckwheat . . . the 
engineer with his dog . . Rodion began, after a 
rest, scratching his ribs and his elbow. “ ‘ You must 
pay,’ says he ... ‘ coin,’ says he. . . . Coin or no 
coin, we shall have to collect ten kopecks from every 
hut. We’ve offended the gentleman very much. I 
am sorry for him. . . .” 

“ We’ve lived without a bridge,” said Volodka, 
not looking at anyone, “ and we don’t want one.” 

“What next; the bridge is a government busi- 
ness.” 

“ We don’t want it.” 

“ Your opinion is not asked. What is it to 
you? ” 

“ ‘ Your opinion is not asked,’ ” Volodka mim- 
icked him. “We don’t want to drive anywhere; 
what do we want with a bridge? If we have to, we 
can cross by the boat.” 

Someone from the yard outside knocked at the 
window so violently that it seemed to shake the 
whole hut. 

“Is Volodka at home?” he heard the voice of 
the younger Lytchkov. “ Volodka, come out, come 
along.” 

Volodka jumped down off the stove and began 
looking for his cap. 


70 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“ Don’t go, Volodka,” said Rodion diffidently. 
“Don’t go with them, son. You are foolish, like 
a little child; they will teach you no good; don’t 
go!” 

“ Don’t go, son,” said Stepanida, and she blinked 
as though about to shed tears. “ I bet they are 
calling you to the tavern.” 

‘“To the tavern,’ ” Volodka mimicked. 

“ You’ll come back drunk again, you currish 
Herod,” said Lukerya, looking at him angrily. 
“ Go along, go along, and may you burn up with 
vodka, you tailless Satan ! ” 

“ You hold your tongue,” shouted Volodka. 

“ They’ve married me to a fool, they’ve ruined 
me, a luckless orphan, you red-headed drunkard 
. . .” wailed Lukerya, wiping her face with a hand 
covered with dough. “ I wish I had never set eyes 
on you.” 

Volodka gave her a blow on the ear and went off. 
Ill 

Elena Ivanovna and her little daughter visited 
the village on foot. They were out for a walk. It 
was a Sunday, and the peasant women and girls were 
walking up and down the street in their brightly-col- 
oured dresses. Rodion and Stepanida, sitting side 
by side at their door, bowed and smiled to Elena 
Ivanovna and her little daughter as to acquaintances. 
From the windows more than a dozen children 
stared at them; their faces expressed amazement 
and curiosity, and they could be heard whispering: 


The New Villa 


71 

“ The Kutcherov lady has come ! The Kut- 
cherov lady ! ” 

“ Good-morning,” said Elena Ivanovna, and she 
stopped; she paused, and then asked: “Well, how 
are you getting on? ” 

“ We get along all right, thank God,” answered 
Rodion, speaking rapidly. “ To be sure we get 
along.” 

“The life we lead!” smiled Stepanida. “You 
can see our poverty yourself, dear lady! The fam- 
ily is fourteen souls in all, and only two bread-win- 
ners. We are supposed to be blacksmiths, but when 
they bring us a horse to shoe we have no coal, noth- 
ing to buy it with. We are worried to death, lady,” 
she went on, and laughed. “ Oh, oh, we are wor- 
ried to death.” 

Elena Ivanovna sat down at the entrance and, 
putting her arm round her little girl, pondered some- 
thing, and judging from the little girl's expression, 
melancholy thoughts were straying through her 
mind, too; as she brooded she played with the sump- 
tuous lace on the parasol she had taken out of her 
mother’s hands. 

“ Poverty,” said Rodion, “ a great deal of anxiety 
— you see no end to it. Here, God sends no rain 
. . . our life is not easy, there is no denying it.” 

“ You have a hard time in this life,” said Elena 
Ivanovna, “ but in the other world you will be 
happy.” 

Rodion did not understand her, and simply 
coughed into his clenched hand by way of reply. 
Stepanida said: 


72 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“ Dear lady, the rich men will be all right in the 
next world, too. The rich put up candles, pay for 
services; the rich give to beggars, but what can the 
poor man do? He has no time to make the sign of 
the cross. He is the beggar of beggars himself; 
how can he think of his soul? And many sins come 
from poverty; from trouble we snarl at one another 
like dogs, we haven’t a good word to say to one 
another, and all sorts of things happen, dear lady — 
God forbid! It seems we have no luck in this 
world nor the next. All the luck has fallen to the 
rich.” 

She spoke gaily; she was evidently used to talking 
of her hard life. And Rodion smiled, too; he was 
pleased that his old woman was so clever, so ready 
of speech. 

“ It is only on the surface that the rich seem to 
be happy,” said Elena Ivanovna. “ Every man has 
his sorrow. Here my husband and I do not live 
poorly, we have means, but are we happy? I am 
young, but I have had four children; my children 
are always being ill. I am ill, too, and constantly 
being doctored.” 

“ And what is your illness? ” asked Rodion. 

“A woman’s complaint. I get no sleep; a con- 
tinual headache gives me no peace. Here I am 
sitting and talking, but my head is bad, I am weak 
all over, and I should prefer the hardest labour to 
such a condition. My soul, too, is troubled; I am 
in continual fear for my children, my husband. 
Every family has its own trouble of some sort; we 
have ours. I am not of noble birth. My grand- 


The New Villa 


73 


father was a simple peasant, my father was a trades- 
man in Moscow; he was a plain, uneducated man, 
too, while my husband’s parents were wealthy and 
distinguished. They did not want him to marry me, 
but he disobeyed them, quarrelled with them, and 
they have not forgiven us to this day. That worries 
my husband; it troubles him and keeps him in con- 
stant agitation; he loves his mother, loves her dearly. 
So I am uneasy, too, my soul is in pain.” 

Peasants, men and women, were by now standing 
round Rodion’s hut and listening. Kozov came up, 
too, and stood twitching his long, narrow beard. 
The Lytchkovs, father and son, drew near. 

“ And say what you like, one cannot be happy and 
satisfied if one does not feel in one’s proper place.” 
Elena Ivanovna went on. “ Each of you has his 
strip of land, each of you works and knows what he 
is working for; my husband builds bridges — in 
short, everyone has his place, while I, I simply walk 
about. I have not my bit to work. I don’t work, 
and feel as though I were an outsider. I am saying 
all this that you may not judge from outward ap- 
pearances; if a man is expensively dressed and has 
means it does not prove that he is satisfied with his 
life.” 

She got up to go away and took her daughter by 
the hand. 

“ I like your place here very much,” she said, and 
smiled, and from that faint, diffident smile one could 
tell how unwell she really was, how young and how 
pretty; she had a pale, thinnish face with dark eye- 
brows and fair hair. And the little girl was just 


74 The Tales of Chekhov 

such another as her mother: thin, fair, and slender. 
There was a fragrance of scent about them. 

u I like the river and the forest and the village,” 
Elena Ivanovna went on; “ I could live here all my 
life, and I feel as though here I should get strong 
and find my place. I want to help you — I want to 
dreadfully — to be of use, to be a real friend to you. 
I know your need, and what I don’t know I feel, my 
heart guesses. I am sick, feeble, and for me per- 
haps it is not possible to change my life as I would. 
But I have children. I will try to bring them up 
that they may be of use to you, may love you. I 
shall impress upon them continually that their life 
does not belong to them, but to you. Only I beg you 
earnestly, I beseech you, trust us, live in friendship 
with us. My husband is a kind, good man. Don’t 
worry him, don’t irritate him. He is sensitive to 
every trifle, and yesterday, for instance, your cattle 
were in our vegetable garden, and one of your 
people broke down the fence to the bee-hives, and 
such an attitude to us drives my husband to despair. 
I beg you,” she went on in an imploring voice, and 
she clasped her hands on her bosom — “I beg you 
to treat us as good neighbours; let us live in peace! 
There is a saying, you know, that even a bad peace 
is better than a good quarrel, and, ‘ Don’t buy prop- 
erty, but buy neighbours.’ I repeat my husband is 
a kind man and good; if all goes well we promise to 
do everything in our power for you; we will mend 
the roads, we will build a school for your children. 
I promise you.” 

“ Of course we thank you humbly, lady,” said 


The New Villa 


75 

Lytchkov the father, looking at the ground; “you 
are educated people; it is for you to know best. 
Only, you see, Voronov, a rich peasant at Eresnevo, 
promised to build a school; he, too, said, 4 I will do 
this for you,’ 4 I will do that for you,’ and he only 
put up the framework and refused to go on. And 
then they made the peasants put the roof on and 
finish it; it cost them a thousand roubles. Voronov 
did not care; he only stroked his beard, but the peas- 
ants felt it a bit hard.” 

44 That was a crow, but now there’s a rook, too,” 
said Kozov, and he winked. 

There was the sound of laughter. 

“ We don’t want a school,” said Volodka sul- 
lenly. 44 Our children go to Petrovskoe, and they 
can go on going there; we don’t want it.” 

Elena Ivanovna seemed suddenly intimidated; her 
face looked paler and thinner, she shrank into her- 
self as though she had been touched with something 
coarse, and walked away without uttering another 
word. And she walked more and more quickly, 
without looking round. 

44 Lady,” said Rodion, walking after her, 44 lady, 
wait a bit; hear what I would say to you.” 

He followed her without his cap, and spoke softly 
as though begging. 

44 Lady, wait and hear what I will say to you.” 

They had walked out of the village, and Elena 
Ivanovna stopped beside a cart in the shade of an 
old mountain ash. 

44 Don’t be offended, lady,” said Rodion. 
44 What does it mean? Have patience. Have pa- 


76 The Tales of Chekhov 

tience for a couple of years. You will live here, you 
will have patience, and it will all come round. Our 
folks are good and peaceable; there’s no harm in 
them; it’s God’s truth I’m telling you. Don’t mind 
Kozov and the Lytchkovs, and don’t mind Volodka. 
He’s a fool; he listens to the first that speaks. The 
others are quiet folks; they are silent. Some would 
be glad, you know, to say a word from the heart and 
to stand up for themselves, but cannot. They have 
a heart and a conscience, but no tongue. Don’t be 
offended . . . have patience. . . . What does it 
matter? ” 

Elena Ivanovna looked at the broad, tranquil 
river, pondering, and tears flowed down her cheeks. 
And Rodion was troubled by those tears; he almost 
cried himself. 

“ Never mind . . he muttered. u Have pa- 
tience for a couple of years. You can have the 
school, you can have the roads, only not all at once. 
If you went, let us say, to sow corn on that mound 
you would first have to weed it out, to pick out all 
the stones, and then to plough, and work and work 
. . . and with the people, you see, it is the same . . . 
you must work and work until you overcome them.” 

The crowd had moved away from Rodion’s hut, 
and was coming along the street towards the moun- 
tain ash. They began singing songs and playing the 
concertina, and they kept coming closer and 
closer. . . . 

“ Mamma, let us go away from here,” said the 
little girl, huddling up to her mother, pale and shak- 
ing all over; “ let us go away, mamma 1 ” 


The New Villa 


77 


“Where?” 

“ To Moscow. . . . Let us go, mamma.” 

The child began crying. 

Rodion was utterly overcome; his face broke into 
profuse perspiration; he took out of his pocket a 
little crooked cucumber, like a half-moon, covered 
with crumbs of rye bread, and began thrusting it 
into the little girl’s hands. 

“ Come, come,” he muttered, scowling severely; 
“ take the little cucumber, eat it up. ... You 
mustn’t cry. Mamma will whip you. . . . She’ll 
tell your father of you when you get home. Come, 
come. . . .” 

They walked on, and he still followed behind 
them, wanting to say something friendly and per- 
suasive to them. And seeing that they were both 
absorbed in their own thoughts and their own griefs, 
and not noticing him, he stopped and, shading his 
eyes from the sun, looked after them for a long time 
till they disappeared into their copse. 

IV 

The engineer seemed to grow irritable and petty, 
and in every trivial incident saw an act of robbery 
or outrage. His gate was kept bolted even by day, 
and at night two watchmen walked up and down the 
garden beating a board; and they gave up employing 
anyone from Obrutchanovo as a labourer. As ill- 
luck would have it someone (either a peasant or one 
of the workmen) took the new wheels off the cart 
and replaced them by old ones, then soon after- 


The Tales of Chekhov 


78 

wards two bridles and a pair of pincers were carried 
off, and murmurs arose even in the village. People 
began to say that a search should be made at the 
Lytchkovs’ and at Volodka’s, and then the bridles 
and the pincers were found under the hedge in the 
engineer’s garden; someone had thrown them down 
there. 

It happened that the peasants were coming in a 
crowd out of the forest, and again they met the 
engineer on the road. He stopped, and without 
wishing them good-day he began, looking angrily 
first at one, then at another: 

“ I have begged you not to gather mushrooms 
in the park and near the yard, but to leave them 
for my wife and children, but your girls come be- 
fore daybreak and there is not a mushroom left. 
. . . Whether one asks you or not it makes no differ- 
ence. Entreaties, and friendliness, and persuasion 
I see are all useless.” 

He fixed his indignant eyes on Rodion and went 
on : 

“ My wife and I behaved to you as human be- 
ings, as to our equals, and you? But what’s the 
use of talking! It will end by our looking down 
upon you. There is nothing left! ” 

And making an effort to restrain his anger, not 
to say too much, he turned and went on. 

On getting home Rodion said his prayer, took 
off his boots, and sat down beside his wife. 

“Yes . . .” he began with a sigh. “We were 
walking along just now, and Mr. Kutcherov met 
us. . . . Yes. . . . He saw the girls at daybreak. 


The New Villa 


79 

. . . ‘ Why don’t they bring mushrooms/ he said 
. . . ‘ to my wife and children? ’ he said. . . . And 
then he looked at me and he said: ‘I and my 
wife will look after you,’ he said. I wanted to 
fall down at his feet, but I hadn’t the courage. . . . 
God give him health. . . . God bless him! . . 

Stephania crossed herself and sighed. 

“ They are kind, simple-hearted people,” Rodion 
went on. “ ‘ We shall look after you.’ . . . He 
promised me that before everyone. In our old age 
... it wouldn’t be a bad thing. ... I should 
always pray for them. . . . Holy Mother, bless 
them. . . .” 

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the 
fourteenth of September, was the festival of the 
village church. The Lytchkovs, father and son, 
went across the river early in the morning and re- 
turned to dinner drunk; they spent a long time go- 
ing about the village, alternately singing and swear- 
ing; then they had a fight and went to the New Villa 
to complain. First Lytchkov the father went into 
the yard with a long ashen stick in his hands. He 
stopped irresolutely and took off his hat. Just at 
that moment the engineer and his family were sitting 
on the verandah, drinking tea. 

“ What do you want? ” shouted the engineer. 

“ Your honour . . .” Lytchkov began, and burst 
into tears. “ Show the Divine mercy, protect me 
. . . my son makes my life a misery . . . your 
honour. . . .” 

Lytchkov the son walked up, too; he, too, was 
bareheaded and had a stick in his hand; he stopped 


80 The Tales of Chekhov 

and fixed his drunken senseless eyes on the 
verandah. 

“ It is not my business to settle your affairs,” said 
the engineer. “ Go to the rural captain or the 
police officer.” 

“ I have been everywhere. ... I have lodged a 
petition . . .” said Lytchkov the father, and he 
sobbed. “Where can I go now? He can kill me 
now, it seems. He can do anything. Is that the 
way to treat a father? A father? ” 

He raised his stick and hit his son on the head; 
the son raised his stick and struck his father just 
on his bald patch such a blow that the stick bounced 
back. The father did not even flinch, but hit his 
son again and again on the head. And so they 
stood and kept hitting one another on the head, and 
it looked not so much like a fight as some sort 
of a game. And peasants, men and women, stood 
in a crowd at the gate and looked into the garden, 
and the faces of all were grave. They were the 
peasants who had come to greet them for the holi- 
day, but seeing the Lytchkovs, they were ashamed 
and did not go in. 

The next morning Elena Ivanovna went with the 
children to Moscow. And there was a rumour that 
the engineer was selling his house. . . . 

V 

The peasants had long ago grown used to the 
sight of the bridge, and it was difficult to imagine 
the river at that place without a bridge. The heap 


The New Villa 


81 


of rubble left from the building of it had long been 
overgrown with grass, the navvies were forgotten, 
and instead of the strains of the “ Dubinushka ” 
that they used to sing, the peasants heard almost 
every hour the sounds of a passing train. 

The New Villa has long ago been sold; now it 
belongs to a government clerk who comes here from 
the town for the holidays with his family, drinks 
tea on the terrace, and then goes back to the town 
again. He wears a cockade on his cap; he talks 
and clears his throat as though he were a very im- 
portant official, though he is only of the rank of a 
collegiate secretary, and when the peasants bow he 
makes no response. 

In Obrutchanovo everyone has grown older; 
Kozov is dead. In Rodion’s hut there are even 
more children. Volodka has grown a long red 
beard. They are still as poor as ever. 

In the early spring the Obrutchanovo peasants 
were sawing wood near the station. And after 
work they were going home; they walked without 
haste one after the other. Broad saws curved over 
their shoulders; the sun was reflected in them. The 
nightingales were singing in the bushes on the bank, 
larks were trilling in the heavens. It was quiet at 
the New Villa ; there was not a soul there, and only 
golden pigeons — golden because the sunlight was 
streaming upon them — were flying over the house. 
All of them — Rodion, the two Lytchkovs, and 
Volodka — thought of the white horses, the little 
ponies, the fireworks, the boat with the lanterns; 
they remembered how the engineer’s wife, so beauti- 


82 


The Tales of Chekhov 


ful and so grandly dressed, had come into the vil- 
lage and talked to them in such a friendly way. 
And it seemed as though all that had never been; 
it was like a dream or a fairy-tale. 

They trudged along, tired out, and mused as they 
went. ... In their village, they mused, the 
people were good, quiet, sensible, fearing God, and 
Elena Ivanovna, too, was quiet, kind, and gentle; 
it made one sad to look at her, but why had they 
not got on together? Why had they parted like 
enemies? How was it that some mist had shrouded 
from their eyes what mattered most, and had let 
them see nothing but damage done by cattle, bridles, 
pincers, and all those trivial things which now, as 
they remembered them, seemed so nonsensical? 
How was it that with the new owner they lived 
in peace, and yet had been on bad terms with the 
engineer? 

And not knowing what answer to make to these 
questions they were all silent except Volodka, who 
muttered something. 

“ What is it? ” Rodion asked. 

“ We lived without a bridge . . .” said Volodka 
gloomily. “ We lived without a bridge, and did not 
ask for one . . . and we don’t want it. . . .” 

No one answered him and they walked on in 
silence with drooping heads. 


DREAMS 








DREAMS 


Two peasant constables — one a stubby, black- 
bearded individual with such exceptionally short 
legs that if you looked at him from behind it 
seemed as though his legs began much lower down 
than in other people; the other, long, thin, and 
straight as a stick, with a scanty beard of dark red- 
dish colour — were escorting to the district town 
a tramp who refused to remember his name. The 
first waddled along, looking from side to side, chew- 
ing now a straw, now his own sleeve, slapping him- 
self on the haunches and humming, and altogether 
had a careless and frivolous air; the other, in spite 
of his lean face and narrow shoulders, looked solid, 
grave, and substantial; in the lines and expression 
of his whole figure he was like the priests among 
the Old Believers, or the warriors who are painted 
on old-fashioned ikons. “ For his wisdom God had 
added to his forehead ” — that is, he was bald — 
which increased the resemblance referred to. The 
first was called Andrey Ptaha, the second Nikandr 
Sapozhnikov. 

The man they were escorting did not in the least 
correspond with the conception everyone has of a 
tramp. He was a frail little man, weak and sickly- 
looking, with small, colourless, and extremely in- 
definite features. His eyebrows were scanty, his ex- 
85 


86 


The Tales of Chekhov 


pression mild and submissive; he had scarcely a 
trace of a moustache, though he was over thirty. 
He walked along timidly, bent forward, with his 
hands thrust into his sleeves. The collar of his 
shabby cloth overcoat, which did not look like a 
peasant’s, was turned up to the very brim of his 
cap, so that only his little red nose ventured to peep 
out into the light of day. He spoke in an ingratiat- 
ing tenor, continually coughing. It was very, very 
difficult to believe that he was a tramp concealing 
his surname. He was more like an unsuccessful 
priest’s son, stricken by God and reduced to beggary; 
a clerk discharged for drunkenness; a merchant’s 
son or nephew who had tried his feeble powers in 
a theatrical career, and was now going home to play 
the last act in the parable of the prodigal son; per- 
haps, judging by the dull patience with which he 
struggled with the hopeless autumn mud, he might 
have been a fanatical monk, wandering from one 
Russian monastery to another, continually seeking 
“ a peaceful life, free from sin,” and not finding 
it. . . . 

The travellers had been a long while on their 
way, but they seemed to be always on the same 
small patch of ground. In front of them there 
stretched thirty feet of muddy black-brown mud, be- 
hind them the same, and wherever one looked 
further, an impenetrable wall of white fog. They 
went on and on, but the ground remained the same, 
the wall was no nearer, and the patch on which 
they walked seemed still the same patch. They 
got a glimpse of a white, clumsy-looking stone, a 


Dreams 


87 

small ravine, or a bundle of hay dropped by a 
passer-by, the brief glimmer of a great muddy 
puddle, or, suddenly, a shadow with vague outlines 
would come into view ahead of them; the nearer 
they got to it the smaller and darker it became; 
nearer still, and there stood up before the way- 
farers a slanting milestone with the number rubbed 
off, or a wretched birch-tree drenched and bare like 
a wayside beggar. The birch-tree would whisper 
something with what remained of its yellow leaves, 
one leaf would break off and float lazily to the 
ground. . . . And then again fog, mud, the brown 
grass at the edges of the road. On the grass hung 
dingy, unfriendly tears. They were not the tears 
of soft joy such as the earth weeps at welcoming 
the summer sun and parting from it, and such as she 
gives to drink at dawn to the corncrakes, quails, and 
graceful, long-beaked crested snipes. The travel- 
lers’ feet stuck in the heavy, clinging mud. Every 
step cost an effort. 

Andrey Ptaha was somewhat excited. He kept 
looking round at the tramp and trying to under- 
stand how a live, sober man could fail to remember 
his name. 

“You are an orthodox Christian, aren’t you?” 
he asked. 

“Yes,” the tramp answered mildly. 

“ H’m . . . then you’ve been christened? ” 

“Why, to be sure! I’m not a Turk. I go to 
church and to the sacrament, and do not eat meat 
when it is forbidden. And I observe my religious 
duties punctually. . . 


88 The Tales of Chekhov 

“ Well, what are you called, then? ” 

“ Call me what you like, good man.” 

Ptaha shrugged his shoulders and slapped him- 
self on the haunches in extreme perplexity. The 
other constable, Nikandr Sapozhnikov, maintained 
a staid silence. He was not so naive as Ptaha, and 
apparently knew very well the reasons which might 
induce an orthodox Christian to conceal his name 4 
from other people. His expressive face was cold 
and stern. He walked apart and did not con- 
descend to idle chatter with his companions, but, as 
it were, tried to show everyone, even the fog, his 
sedateness and discretion. 

“ God knows what to make of you,” Ptaha per- 
sisted in addressing the tramp. “ Peasant you are 
not, and gentleman you are not, but some sort of a 
thing between. . . . The other day I was washing 
a sieve in the pond and caught a reptile — see, 
as long as a finger, with gills and a tail. The first 
minute I thought it was a fish, then I looked — and, 
blow it! if it hadn’t paws. It was not a fish, it was 
a viper, and the deuce only knows what it was. . . . 

So that’s like you. . . . What’s your calling? ” 

“ I am a peasant and of peasant family,” sighed 
the tramp. “ My mamma was a house serf. I 
don’t look like a peasant, that’s true, for such has 
been my lot, good man. My mamma was a nurse 
with the gentry, and had every comfort, and as I 
was of her flesh and blood, I lived with her in the 
master’s house. She petted and spoiled me, and did 
her best to take me out of my humble class and 
make a gentleman of me. I slept in a bed, every 


Dreams 


89 

day I ate a real dinner, I wore breeches and shoes 
like a gentleman’s child. What my mamma ate I 
was fed on, too; they gave her stuffs as a present, 
and she dressed me up in them. . . . We lived 
well ! I ate so many sweets and cakes in my childish 
years that if they could be sold now it would be 
enough to buy a good horse. Mamma taught me 
to read and write, she instilled the fear of God in 
me from my earliest years, and she so trained me 
that now I can’t bring myself to utter an unrefined 
peasant word. And I don’t drink vodka, my lad, 
and am neat in my dress, and know how to behave 
with decorum in good society. If she is still living, 
God give her health; and if she is dead, then, O 
Lord, give her soul peace in Thy Kingdom, wherein 
the just are at rest.” 

The tramp bared his head with the scanty hair 
standing up like a brush on it, turned his eyes up- 
ward and crossed himself twice. 

“ Grant her, O Lord, a verdant and peaceful rest- 
ing-place,” he said in a drawling voice, more like 
an old woman’s than a man’s. “ Teach Thy ser- 
vant Xenia Thy justifications, O Lord! If it had 
not been for my beloved mamma I should have been 
a peasant with no sort of understanding! Now, 
young man, ask me about anything and I under- 
stand it all: the holy Scriptures and profane writ- 
ings, and every prayer and catechism. I live ac- 
cording to the Scriptures. ... I don’t injure any- 
one, I keep my flesh in purity and continence, I ob- 
serve the fasts, I eat at fitting times. Another man 
will take no pleasure in anything but vodka and lewd 


The Tales of Chekhov 


90 

talk, but when I have time I sit in a corner and read 
a book. I read and I weep and weep. . . .” 

“ What do you weep for? ” 

“They write so pathetically! For some books 
one gives but a five-kopeck piece, and yet one weeps 
and sighs exceedingly over it.” 

“ Is your father dead? ” asked Ptaha. 

“ I don’t know, good man. I don’t know my 
parent; it is no use concealing it. I judge that I 
was mamma’s illegitimate son. My mamma lived 
all her life with the gentry, and did not want to 
marry a simple peasant. . . .” 

“ And so she fell into the master’s hands,” 
laughed Ptaha. 

“ She did transgress, that’s true. She was pious, 
God-fearing, but she did not keep her maiden purity. 
It is a sin, of course, a great sin, there’s no doubt 
about it, but to make up for it there is, maybe, noble 
blood in me. Maybe I am only a peasant by class, 
but in nature a noble gentleman.” 

The “ noble gentleman ” uttered all this in a soft, 
sugary tenor, wrinkling up his narrow forehead and 
emitting creaking sounds from his red, frozen little 
nose. Ptaha listened and looked askance at him in 
wonder, continually shrugging his shoulders. 

After going nearly five miles the constables and 
the tramp sat down on a mound to rest. 

“ Even a dog knows his name,” Ptaha muttered. 
“My name is Andryushka, his is Nikandr; every 
man has his holy name, and it can’t be forgotten. 
Nohow.” 


Dreams 


91 

“ Who has any need to know my name? ” sighed 
the tramp, leaning his cheek on his fist. “ And 
what advantage would it be to me if they did know 
it? If I were allowed to go where I would — but 
it would only make things worse. I know the law, 
Christian brothers. Now I am a tramp who doesn’t 
remember his name, and it’s the very most if they 
send me to Eastern Siberia and give me thirty or 
forty lashes; but if I were to tell them my real name 
and description they would send me back to hard 
labour, I know!” 

“ Why, have you been a convict? ” 

“ I have, dear friend. For four years I went 
about with my head shaved and fetters on my legs.” 

“ What for?” 

u For murder, my good man! When I was still 
a boy of eighteen or so, my mamma accidentally 
ppured arsenic instead of soda and acid into my 
master’s glass. There were boxes of all sorts in 
the storeroom, numbers of them; it was easy to 
make a mistake over them.” 

The tramp sighed, shook his head, and said: 

“She was a pious woman, but, who knows? an- 
other man’s soul is a slumbering forest! It may 
have been an accident, or maybe she could not en- 
dure the affront of seeing the master prefer another 
servant. . . . Perhaps she put it in on purpose, God 
knows ! I was young then, and did not understand 
it all . . . now I remember that our master had 
taken another mistress and mamma was greatly dis- 
turbed. Our trial lasted nearly two years. . . , 


The Tales of Chekhov 


92 

Mamma was condemned to penal servitude for 
twenty years, and I, on account of my youth, only to 
seven.” 

“And why were you sentenced?” 

“ As an accomplice. I handed the glass to the 
master. That was always the custom. Mamma 
prepared the soda and I handed it to him. Only 
I tell you all this as a Christian, brothers, as I would 
say it before God. Don’t you tell anybody. . . .” 

“ Oh, nobody’s going to ask us,” said Ptaha. 
“ So you’ve run away from prison, have you? ” 

“ I have, dear friend. Fourteen of us ran away. 
Some folks, God bless them! ran away and took 
me with them. Now you tell me, on your con- 
science, good man, what reason have I to disclose 
my name? They will send me back to penal servi- 
tude, you know ! And I am not fit for penal servi- 
tude! I am a refined man in delicate health. I 
like to sleep and eat in cleanliness. When I pray 
to God I like to light a little lamp or a candle, and 
not to have a noise around me. When I bow down 
to the ground I like the floor not to be dirty or spat 
upon. And I bow down forty times every morning 
and evening, praying for mamma.” 

The tramp took off his cap and crossed himself. 

“ And let them send me to Eastern Siberia,” he 
said; “ 1 am not afraid of that.” 

“ Surely that’s no better? ” 

“ It is quite a different thing. In penal servitude 
you are like a crab in a basket: crowding, crushing, 
jostling, there’s no room to breathe; it’s downright 
hell — such hell, may the Queen of Heaven keep us 


Dreams 


93 

from it! You are a robber and treated like a 
robber — worse than any dog. You can’t sleep, 
you can’t eat or even say your prayers. But it’s not 
like that in a settlement. In a settlement I shall be 
a member of a commune like other people. The 
authorities are bound by law to give me my share 
. . . ye-es! They say the land costs nothing, no 
more than snow; you can take what you like ! They 
will give me corn land and building land and garden. 
... I shall plough my fields like other people, sow 
seed. I shall have cattle and stock of all sorts, 
bees, sheep, and dogs. ... A Siberian cat, that rats 
and mice may not devour my goods. ... I will put 
up a house, I shall buy ikons. . . . Please God, I’ll 
get married, I shall have children. . . .” 

The tramp muttered and looked, not at his listen- 
ers, but away into the distance. Naive as his 
dreams were, they were uttered in such a genuine 
and heartfelt tone that it was difficult not to believe 
in them. The tramp’s little mouth was screwed up 
in a smile. His eyes and little nose and his whole 
face were fixed and blank with blissful anticipation 
of happiness in the distant future. The constables 
listened and looked at him gravely, not without 
sympathy. They, too, believed in his dreams. 

“ I am not afraid of Siberia,” the tramp went on 
muttering. “ Siberia is just as much Russia and has 
the same God and Tsar as here. They are just as 
orthodox Christians as you and I. Only there is 
more freedom there and people are better off. 
Everything is better there. Take the rivers there, 
for instance; they are far better than those here. 


94 The Tales of Chekhov 

There’s no end of fish; and all sorts of wild fowl. 
And my greatest pleasure, brothers, is fishing. 
Give me no bread to eat, but let me sit with a fish- 
hook. Yes, indeed! I fish with a hook and with 
a wire line, and set creels, and when the ice comes 
I catch with a net. I am not strong to draw up 
the net, so I shall hire a man for five kopecks. 
And, Lord, what a pleasure it is! You catch an 
eel-pout or a roach of some sort and are as pleased 
as though you had met your own brother. And 
would you believe it, there’s a special art for every 
fish: you catch one with a live bait, you catch an- 
other with a grub, the third with a frog or a grass- 
hopper. One has to understand all that, of course ! 
For example, take the eel-pout. It is not a delicate 
fish — it will take a perch; and a pike loves a 
gudgeon, the shilishper likes a butterfly. If you fish 
for a roach in a rapid stream there is no greater 
pleasure. You throw the line of seventy feet with- 
out lead, with a butterfly or a beetle, so that the 
bait floats on the surface; you stand in the water 
without your trousers and let it go with the current, 
and tug! the roach pulls at it! Only you have got 
to be artful that he doesn’t carry off the bait, the 
damned rascal. As soon as he tugs at your line you 
must whip it up; it’s no good waiting. It’s wonder- 
ful what a lot of fish I’ve caught in my time. When 
we were running away the other convicts would 
sleep in the forest; I could not sleep, but I was off 
to the river. The rivers there are wide and rapid, 
the banks are steep — awfully! It’s all slumbering 


Dreams 


95 

forests on the bank. The trees are so tall that if 
you look, to the top it makes you dizzy. Every pine 
would be worth ten roubles by the prices here.” 

In the overwhelming rush of his fancies, of 
artistic images of the past and sweet presentiments 
of happiness in the future, the poor wretch sank into 
silence, merely moving his lips as though whispering 
to himself. The vacant, blissful smile never left 
his lips. The constables were silent. They were 
pondering with bent heads. In the autumn still- 
ness, when the cold, sullen mist that rises from the 
earth lies like a weight on the heart, when it stands 
like a prison wall before the eyes, and reminds man 
of the limitation of his freedom, it is sweet to think 
of the broad, rapid rivers, with steep banks wild 
and luxuriant, of the impenetrable forests, of the 
boundless steppes. Slowly and quietly the fancy 
pictures how early in the morning, before the flush 
of dawn has left the sky, a man makes his way along 
the steep deserted bank like a tiny speck: the ancient, 
mast-like pines rise up in terraces on both sides of 
the torrent, gaze sternly at the free man and 
murmur menacingly; rocks, huge stones, and thorny 
bushes bar his way, but he is strong in body and bold 
in spirit, and has no fear of the pine-trees, nor 
stones, nor of his solitude, nor of the reverberating 
echo which repeats the sound of every footstep 
that he takes. 

The peasants called up a picture of a free life 
such as they had never lived; whether they vaguely 
recalled the images of stories heard long ago or 


The Tales of Chekhov 


96 

whether notions of a free life had been handed 
down to them with their flesh and blood from far- 
off free ancestors, God knows ! 

The first to break the silence was Nikandr 
Sapozhnikov, who had not till then let fall a single 
word. Whether he envied the tramp’s transparent 
happiness, or whether he felt in his heart that 
dreams of happiness were out of keeping with the 
grey fog and the dirty brown mud — anyway, he 
looked sternly at the tramp and said : 

“ It’s all very well, to be sure, only you won’t 
reach those plenteous regions, brother. How could 
you? Before you’d gone two hundred miles you’d 
give up your soul to God. Just look what a weak- 
ling you are! Here you’ve hardly gone five miles 
and you can’t get your breath.” 

The tramp turned slowly toward Nikandr, and 
the blissful smile vanished from his face. He 
looked with a scared and guilty air at the peasant’s 
staid face, apparently remembered something, and 
bent his head. A silence followed again. . . . All 
three were pondering. The peasants were racking 
their brains in the effort to grasp in their imagina- 
tion what can be grasped by none but God — that 
is, the vast expanse dividing them from the land of 
freedom. Into the tramp’s mind thronged clear 
and distinct pictures more terrible than that expanse. 
Before him rose vividly the picture of the long legal 
delays and procrastinations, the temporary and per- 
manent prisons, the convict boats, the wearisome 
stoppages on the way, the frozen winters, illnesses, 
deaths of companions. . . . 


Dreams 


97 

The tramp blinked guiltily, wiped the tiny drops 
of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, drew 
a deep breath as though he had just leapt out of a 
very hot bath, then wiped his forehead with the 
other sleeve and looked round fearfully. 

“That’s true; you won’t get there!” Ptaha 
agreed. “You are not much of a walker! Look 
at you — nothing but skin and bone! You’ll die, 
brother! ” 

“ Of course he’ll die! What could he do? ” said 
Nikandr. “ He’s fit for the hospital now. . . . For 
sure ! ” 

The man who had forgotten his name looked at 
the stern, unconcerned faces of his sinister com- 
panions, and without taking off his cap, hurriedly 
crossed himself, staring with wide-open eyes. . . . 
He trembled, his head shook, and he began twitch- 
ing all over, like a caterpillar when it is stepped 
upon. . . . 

“ Well, it’s time to go,” said Nikandr, getting up; 
“ we’ve had a rest.” 

A minute later they were stepping along the muddy 
road. The tramp was more bent than ever, and he 
thrust his hands further up his sleeves. Ptaha was 
silent. 



THE PIPE 



THE PIPE 


Meliton Shishkin, a bailiff from the Dementyev 
farm, exhausted by the sultry heat of the fir-wood 
and covered with spiders’ webs and pine-needles, 
made his way with his gun to the edge of the wood. 
His Damka — a mongrel between a yard dog and 
a setter — an extremely thin bitch heavy with 
young, trailed after her master with her wet tail be- 
tween her legs, doing all she could to avoid pricking 
her nose. It was a dull, overcast morning. Big 
drops dripped from the bracken and from the trees 
that were wrapped in a light mist; there was a pun- 
gent smell of decay from the dampness of the wood. 

There were birch-trees ahead of him where the 
wood ended, and between their stems and branches 
he could see the misty distance. Beyond the birch- 
trees someone was playing on a shepherd’s rustic 
pipe. The player produced no more than five or 
six notes, dragged them out languidly with no at- 
tempt at forming a tune, and yet there was some- 
thing harsh and extremely dreary in the sound of 
the piping. 

As the copse became sparser, and the pines were 
interspersed with young birch-trees, Meliton saw a 
herd. Hobbled horses, cows, and sheep were 
wandering among the bushes and, snapping the dry 
branches, sniffed at the herbage of the copse. A 

IOI 


102 


The Tales of Chekhov 


lean old shepherd, bareheaded, in a torn grey 
smock, stood leaning against the wet trunk of a 
birch-tree. He stared at the ground, pondering 
something, and played his pipe, it seemed, mechani- 
cally. 

“Good-day, grandfather! God help you!” 
Meliton greeted him in a thin, husky voice which 
seemed incongruous with his huge stature and big, 
fleshy face. “ How cleverly you are playing your 
pipe! Whose herd are you minding? ” 

“ The Artamonovs’,” the shepherd answered re- 
luctantly, and he thrust the pipe into his bosom. 

“ So I suppose the wood is the Artamonovs’ 
too?” Meliton inquired, looking about him. 
“ Yes, it is the Artamonovs’; only fancy ... I had 
completely lost myself. I got my face scratched all 
over in the thicket.” 

He sat down on the wet earth and began rolling 
up a bit of newspaper into a cigarette. 

Like his voice, everything about the man was 
small and out of keeping with his height, his 
breadth, and his fleshy face: his smiles, his eyes, 
his buttons, his tiny cap, which would hardly keep 
on his big, closely-cropped head. When he talked 
and smiled there was something womanish, timid, 
and meek about his puffy, shaven face and his whole 
figure. 

“What weather! God help us!” he said, and 
he turned his head from side to side. “ Folk have 
not carried the oats yet, and the rain seems as 
though it had been taken on for good, God bless it.” 

The shepherd looked at the sky, from which a 


The Pipe 103 

drizzling rain was falling, at the wood, at the bail- 
iff’s wet clothes, pondered, and said nothing. 

“ The whole summer has been the same,” sighed 
Meliton. “ A bad business for the peasants and no 
pleasure for the gentry.” 

The shepherd looked at the sky again, thought a 
moment, and said deliberately, as though chewing 
each word : 

“ It’s all going the same way. . . . There is 
nothing good to be looked for.” 

“How are things with you here?” Meliton in- 
quired, lighting his cigarette. “ Haven’t you seen 
any coveys of grouse in the Artamonovs’ clearing? ” 

The shepherd did not answer at once. He 
looked again at the sky and to right and left, 
thought a little, blinked. . . . Apparently he at- 
tached no little significance to his words, and to in- 
crease their value tried to pronounce them with de- 
liberation and a certain solemnity. The expression 
of his face had the sharpness and staidness of old 
age, and the fact that his nose had a saddle-shaped 
depression across the middle and his nostrils turned 
upwards gave him a sly and sarcastic look. 

u No, I believe I haven’t,” he said. “ Our hunts- 
man Eryomka was saying that on Elijah’s Day he 
started one covey near Pustoshye, but I dare say he 
was lying. There are very few birds.” 

“ Yes, brother, very few. . . . Very few every- 
where! The shooting here, if one is to look at 
it with common sense, is good for nothing and not 
worth having. There is no game at all, and what 
there is is not worth dirtying your hands over — it 


The Tales of Chekhov 


104 

is not full-grown. It is such poor stuff that one is 
ashamed to look at it.” 

Meliton gave a laugh and waved his hands. 

“ Things happen so queerly in this world that it is 
simply laughable and nothing else. Birds nowadays 
have become so unaccountable : they sit late on their 
eggs, and there are some, I declare, that have not 
hatched them by St. Peter’s Day! ” 

“ It’s all going the same way,” said the shepherd, 
turning his face upwards. “ There was little game 
last year, this year there are fewer birds still, and 
in another five years, mark my words, there will be 
none at all. As far as I can see there will soon be 
not only no game, but no birds at all.” 

“ Yes,” Meliton assented, after a moment’s 
thought. “ That’s true.” 

The shepherd gave a bitter smile and shook his 
head. 

“ It’s a wonder,” he said, “ what has become of 
them all ! I remember twenty years ago there used 
to be geese here, and cranes and ducks and grouse — 
clouds and clouds of them! The gentry used to 
meet together for shooting, and one heard nothing 
but pouf-pouf-pouf! pouf-pouf-pouf! There was 
no end to the woodcocks, the snipe, and the little 
teals, and the water-snipe were as common as star- 
lings, or let us say sparrows — lots and lots of them ! 
And what has become of them all? We don’t even 
see the birds of prey. The eagles, the hawks, and 
the owls have all gone. . . . There are fewer of 
every sort of wild beast, too. Nowadays, brother, 
even the wolf and the fox have grown rare, let alone 


The Pipe 105 

the bear or the otter. And you know in old days 
there were even elks! For forty years I have been 
observing the works of God from year to year, and 
it is my opinion that everything is going the same 
way.” 

“ What way? ” 

“ To the bad, young man. To ruin, we must sup- 
pose. . . . The time has come for God’s world to 
perish.” 

The old man put on his cap and began gazing at 
the sky. 

“ It’s a pity,” he sighed, after a brief silence. 
“ O God, what a pity! Of course it is God’s will; 
the world was not created by us, but yet it is a pity, 
brother. If a single tree withers away, or let us say 
a single cow dies, it makes one sorry, but what will 
it be, good man, if the whole world crumbles into 
dust? Such blessings, Lord Jesus! The sun, and 
the sky, and the forest, and the rivers, and the crea- 
tures — all these have been created, adapted, and 
adjusted to one another. Each has been put to its 
appointed task and knows its place. And all that 
must perish.” 

A mournful smile gleamed on the shepherd’s face, 
and his eyelids quivered. 

“ You say — the world is perishing,” said Meli- 
ton, pondering. “ It may be that the end of the 
world is near at hand, but you can’t judge by the 
birds. I don’t think the birds can be taken as a 
sign.” 

“ Not the birds only,” said the shepherd. “ It’s 
the wild beasts, too, and the cattle, and the bees, and 


io6 The Tales of Chekhov 

the fish. ... If you don’t believe me ask the old 
people; every old man will tell you that the fish 
are not at all what they used to be. In the seas, 
in the lakes, and in the rivers, there are fewer fish 
from year to year. In our Pestchanka, I remember, 
pike used to be caught a yard long, and there were 
eel-pouts, and roach, and bream, and every fish had 
a presentable appearance; while nowadays, if you 
catch a wretched little pikelet or perch six inches long 
you have to be thankful. There are not any gud- 
geon even worth talking about. Every year it is 
worse and worse, and in a little while there will be 
no fish at all. And take the rivers now . . . the 
rivers are drying up, for sure.” 

“ It is true; they are drying up.” 

“ To be sure, that’s what I say. Every year they 
are shallower and shallower, and there are not the 
deep holes there used to be. And do you see the 
bushes yonder? ” the old man asked, pointing to one 
side. “ Beyond them is an old river-bed; it’s called 
a backwater. In my father’s time the Pestchanka 
flowed there, but now look; where have the evil 
spirits taken it to? It changes its course, and, mind 
you, it will go on changing till such time as it has 
dried up altogether. There used to be marshes and 
ponds beyond Kurgasovo, and where are they now? 
And what has become of the streams? Here in 
this very wood we used to have a stream flowing, 
and such a stream that the peasants used to set creels 
in it and caught pike; wild ducks used to spend the 
winter by it, and nowadays there is no water in it 
worth speaking of, even at the spring floods. Yes, 


The Pipe 107 

brother, look where you will, things are bad every- 
where. Everywhere ! ” 

A silence followed. Meliton sank into thought, 
with his eyes fixed on one spot. He wanted to 
think of some one part of nature as yet untouched 
by the all-embracing ruin. Spots of light glistened 
on the mist and the slanting streaks of rain as 
though on opaque glass, and immediately died away 
again — it was the rising sun trying to break through 
the clouds and peep at the earth. 

“ Yes, the forests, too . . .” Meliton muttered. 

“ The forests, too,” the shepherd repeated. 
“ They cut them down, and they catch fire, and they 
wither away, and no new ones are growing. What- 
ever does grow up is cut down at once; one day it 
shoots up and the next it has been cut down — and 
so on without end till nothing’s left. I have kept 
the herds of the commune ever since the time of 
Freedom, good man; before the time of Freedom I 
was shepherd of the master’s herds. I have watched 
them in this very spot, and I can’t remember a sum- 
mer day in all my life that I have not been here. 
And all the time I have been observing the works 
of God. I have looked at them in my time till I 
know them, and it is my opinion that all things grow- 
ing are on the decline. Whether you take the rye, 
or the vegetables, or flowers of any sort, they are 
all going the same way.” 

“ But people have grown better,” observed the 
bailiff. 

“ In what way better? ” 

“ Cleverer.” 


io8 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“Cleverer, maybe, that’s true, young man; but 
what’s the use of that? What earthly good is clev- 
erness to people on the brink of ruin? One can per- 
ish without cleverness. What’s the good of clever- 
ness to a huntsman if there is no game? What I 
think is that God has given men brains and taken 
away their strength. People have grown weak, ex- 
ceedingly weak. Take me, for instance ... I am 
not worth a halfpenny, I am the humblest peasant 
in the whole village, and yet, young man, I have 
strength. Mind you, I am in my seventies, and I 
tend my herd day in and day out, and keep the night 
watch, too, for twenty kopecks, and I don’t sleep, 
and I don’t feel the cold; my son is cleverer than I 
am, but put him in my place and he would ask for a 
rise next day, or would be going to the doctors. 
There it is. I eat nothing but bread, for ‘ Give us 
this day our daily bread,’ and my father ate nothing 
but bread, and my grandfather; but the peasant now- 
adays must have tea and vodka and white loaves, 
and must sleep from sunset to dawn, and he goes 
to the doctor and pampers himself in all sorts of 
ways. And why is it? He has grown weak; he 
has not the strength to endure. If he wants to stay 
awake, his eyes close — there is no doing anything.” 

“That’s true,” Meliton agreed; “the peasant is 
good for nothing nowadays.” 

“ It’s no good hiding what is wrong; we get worse 
from year to year. And if you take the gentry into 
consideration, they’ve grown feebler even more than 
the peasants have. The gentleman nowadays has 
mastered everything; he knows what he ought not 


The Pipe 109 

to know, and what is the sense of it? It makes you 
feel pitiful to look at him. . . . He is a thin, puny 
little fellow, like some Hungarian or Frenchman; 
there is no dignity nor air about him; it’s only in 
name he is a gentleman. There is no place for him, 
poor dear, and nothing for him to do, and there is no 
making out what he wants. Either he sits with a 
hook catching fish, or he lolls on his back reading, 
or trots about among the peasants saying all sorts 
of things to them, and those that are hungry go in 
for being clerks. So he spends his life in vain. 
And he has no notion of doing something real and 
useful. The gentry in old days were half of them 
generals, but nowadays they are — a poor lot.” 

“ They are badly off nowadays,” said Meliton. 

“ They are poorer because God has taken away 
their strength. You can’t go against God.” 

Meliton stared at a fixed point again. After 
thinking a little he heaved a sigh as staid, reason- 
able people do sigh, shook his head, and said: 

“And all because of what? We have sinned 
greatly, we have forgotten God . . . and it seems 
that the time has come for all to end. And, after 
all, the world can’t last for ever — it’s time to know 
when to take leave.” 

The shepherd sighed and, as though wishing to 
cut short an unpleasant conversation, he walked 
away from the birch-tree and began silently reckon- 
ing over the cows. 

“ Hey-hey-hey ! ” he shouted. “ Hey-hey-hey! 
Bother you, the plague take you! The devil has 
taken you into the thicket. Tu-lu-lu ! ” 


no 


The Tales of Chekhov 


With an angry face he went into the bushes to 
collect his herd. Meliton got up and sauntered 
slowly along the edge of the wood. He looked at 
the ground at his feet and pondered; he still wanted 
to think of something which had not yet been touched 
by death. Patches of light crept upon the slanting 
streaks of rain again; they danced on the tops of 
the trees and died away among the wet leaves. 
Damka found a hedgehog under a bush, and wanting 
to attract her master’s attention to it, barked and 
howled. 

“ Did you have an eclipse or not? ” the shepherd 
called from the bushes. 

“ Yes, we had,” answered Meliton. 

“ Ah ! Folks are complaining all about that there 
was one. It shows there is disorder even in the 
heavens! It’s not for nothing. . . . Hey-hey-hey! 
Hey! ” 

Driving his herd together to the edge of the wood, 
the shepherd leaned against the birch-tree, looked 
up at the sky, without haste took his pipe from his 
bosom and began playing. As before, he played 
mechanically and took no more than five or six notes; 
as though the pipe had come into his hands for the 
first time, the sounds floated from it uncertainly, 
with no regularity, not blending into a tune, but to 
Meliton, brooding on the destruction of the world, 
there was a sound in it of something very depress- 
ing and revolting which he would much rather not 
have heard. The highest, shrillest notes, which 
quivered and broke, seemed to be weeping discon- 


Ill 


The Pipe 

solately, as though the pipe were sick and frightened, 
while the lowest notes for some reason reminded him 
of the mist, the dejected trees, the grey sky. Such 
music seemed in keeping with the weather, the old 
man and his sayings. 

Meliton wanted to complain. He went up to the 
old man and, looking at his mournful, mocking face 
and at the pipe, muttered: 

“ And life has grown worse, grandfather. It is 
utterly impossible to live. Bad crops, want. . . . 
Cattle plague continually, diseases of all sorts. . . . 
We are crushed by poverty.” 

The bailiff’s puffy face turned crimson and took 
a dejected, womanish expression. He twirled his 
fingers as though seeking words to convey his vague 
feeling and went on : 

“ Eight children, a wife . . . and my mother 
still living, and my whole salary ten roubles a 
month and to board myself. My wife has become 
a Satan from poverty. . . . I go off drinking myself. 
I am a sensible, steady man; I have education. I 
ought to sit at home in peace, but I stray about all 
day with my gun like a dog because it is more than 
I can stand; my home is hateful to me! ” 

Feeling that his tongue was uttering something 
quite different from what he wanted to say, the bailiff 
waved his hand and said bitterly: 

“ If the world’s going to end I wish it would 
make haste about it. There’s no need to drag it 
out and make folks miserable for nothing. . . .” 

The old man took the pipe from his lips and, 


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screwing up one eye, looked into its little opening. 
His face was sad and covered with thick drops like 
tears. He smiled and said: 

“ It’s a pity, my friend! My goodness, what a 
pity! The earth, the forest, the sky, the beasts of 
all sorts — all this has been created, you know, 
adapted; they all have their intelligence. It is all 
going to ruin. And most of all I am sorry for 
people.” 

There was the sound in the wood of heavy rain 
coming nearer. Meliton looked in the direction of 
the sound, did up all his buttons, and said: 

“ I am going to the village. Good-bye, grand- 
father. What is your name? ” 

“ Luka the Poor.” 

“ Well, good-bye, Luka ! Thank you for your 
good words. Damka, ici ! ” 

After parting from the shepherd Meliton made 
his way along the edge of the wood, and then down 
hill to a meadow which by degrees turned into a 
marsh. There was a squelch of water under his 
feet, and the rusty marsh sedge, still green and 
juicy, drooped down to the earth as though afraid 
of being trampled underfoot. Beyond the marsh, 
on the bank of the Pestchanka, of which the old 
man had spoken, stood a row of willows, and beyond 
the willows a barn looked dark blue in the mist. 
One could feel the approach of that miserable, 
utterly inevitable season, when the fields grow dark 
and the earth is muddy and cold, when the weeping 
willow seems still more mournful and tears trickle 
down its stem, and only the cranes fly away from 


The Pipe 113 

the general misery, and even they, as though afraid 
of insulting dispirited nature by the expression of 
their happiness, fill the air with their mournful, 
dreary notes. 

Meliton plodded along to the river, and heard the 
sounds of the pipe gradually dying away behind him. 
He still wanted to complain. He looked dejectedly 
about him, and he felt insufferably sorry for the 
sky and the earth and the sun and the woods and 
his Damka, and when the highest drawn-out note of 
the pipe floated quivering in the air, like a voice 
weeping, he felt extremely bitter and resentful of 
the impropriety in the conduct of nature. 

The high note quivered, broke off, and the pipe 
was silent. 



AGAFYA 


AGAFYA 


During my stay in the district of S. I often used 
to go to see the watchman Savva Stukatch, or simply 
Savka, in the kitchen gardens of Dubovo. These 
kitchen gardens were my favorite resort for so-called 
“ mixed ” fishing, when one goes out without know- 
ing what day or hour one may return, taking with 
one every sort of fishing tackle as well as a store of 
provisions. To tell the truth, it was not so much 
the fishing that attracted me as the peaceful stroll, 
the meals at no set time, the talk with Savka, and 
being for so long face to face with the calm summer 
nights. Savka was a young man of five-and-twenty, 
well grown and handsome, and as strong as a flint. 
He had the reputation of being a sensible and rea- 
sonable fellow. He could read and write, and very 
rarely drank, but as a workman this strong and 
healthy young man was not worth a farthing. A 
sluggish, overpowering sloth was mingled with the 
strength in his muscles, which were strong as cords. 
Like everyone else in his village, he lived in his own 
hut, and had his share of land, but neither tilled it 
nor sowed it, and did not work at any sort of trade. 
His old mother begged alms at people’s windows and 
he himself lived like a bird of the air; he did not 
know in the morning what he would eat at midday, 
ii 7 


1 1 8 The Tales of Chekhov 

It was not that he was lacking in will, or energy, or 
feeling for his mother; it was simply that he felt 
no inclination for work and did not recognize the 
advantage of it. His whole figure suggested un- 
ruffled serenity, an innate, almost artistic passion for 
living carelessly, never with his sleeves tucked up. 
When Savka’s young, healthy body had a physical 
craving for muscular work, the young man aban- 
doned himself completely for a brief interval to some 
free but nonsensical pursuit, such as sharpening 
skates not wanted for any special purpose, or racing 
about after the peasant women. His favorite atti- 
tude was one of concentrated immobility. He was 
capable of standing for hours at a stretch in the 
same place with his eyes fixed on the same spot with- 
out stirring. He never moved except on impulse, 
and then only when an occasion presented itself for 
some rapid and abrupt action: catching a running 
dog by the tail, pulling off a woman’s kerchief, or 
jumping over a big hole. It need hardly be said 
that with such parsimony of movement Savka was 
as poor as a mouse and lived worse than any home- 
less outcast. As time went on, I suppose he accumu- 
lated arrears of taxes and, young and sturdy as he 
was, he was sent by the commune to do an old man’s 
job — to be watchman and scarecrow in the kitchen 
gardens. However much they laughed at him for 
his premature senility he did not object to it. This 
position, quiet and convenient for motionless con- 
templation, exactly fitted his temperament. 

It happened I was with this Savka one fine May 
evening. I remember I was lying on a torn and 


Agafya 119 

dirty sackcloth cover close to the shanty from which 
came a heavy, fragrant scent of hay. Clasping my 
hands under my head I looked before me. At my 
feet was lying a wooden fork. Behind it Savka’s 
dog Kutka stood out like a black patch, and not a 
dozen feet from Kutka the ground ended abruptly in 
the steep bank of the little river. Lying down I 
could not see the river; I could only see the tops 
of the young willows growing thickly on the nearer 
bank, and the twisting, as it were gnawed away, 
edges of the opposite bank. At a distance beyond 
the bank on the dark hillside the huts of the village 
in which Savka lived lay huddling together like 
frightened young partridges. Beyond the hill the 
afterglow of sunset still lingered in the sky. One 
pale crimson streak was all that was left, and even 
that began to be covered by little clouds as a fire 
with ash. 

A copse with alder-trees, softly whispering, and 
from time to time shuddering in the fitful breeze, 
lay, a dark blur, on the right of the kitchen gardens; 
on the left stretched the immense plain. In the dis- 
tance, where the eye could not distinguish between 
the sky and the plain, there was a bright gleam of 
light. A little way off from me sat Savka. With 
his legs tucked under him like a Turk and his head 
hanging, he looked pensively at Kutka. Our hooks 
with live bait on them had long been in the river, 
and we had nothing left to do but to abandon our- 
selves to repose, which Savka, who was never ex- 
hausted and always rested, loved so much. The 
glow had not yet quite died away, but the summer 


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night was already enfolding nature in its caressing, 
soothing embrace. 

Everything was sinking into its first deep sleep 
except some night bird unfamiliar to me, which indo- 
lently uttered a long, protracted cry in several dis- 
tinct notes like the phrase, “ Have you seen Ni- 
ki-ta?” and immediately answered itself, “Seen 
him, seen him, seen him ! ” 

“ Why is it the nightingales aren’t singing to- 
night? ” I asked Savka. 

He turned slowly towards me. His features were 
large, but his face was open, soft, and expressive 
as a woman’s. Then he gazed with his mild, 
dreamy eyes at the copse, at the willows, slowly 
pulled a whistle out of his pocket, put it in his mouth 
and whistled the note of a hen-nightingale. And at 
once, as though in answer to his call, a landrail 
called on the opposite bank. 

“ There’s a nightingale for you . . .” laughed 
Savka. “Drag-drag! drag-drag! just like pulling 
at a hook, and yet I bet he thinks he is singing, too.” 

“ I like that bird,” I said. “ Do you know, when 
the birds are migrating the landrail does not fly, but 
runs along the ground? It only flies over the rivers 
and the sea, but all the rest it does on foot.” 

“ Upon my word, the dog . . .” muttered Savka, 
looking with respect in the direction of the calling 
landrail. 

Knowing how fond Savka was of listening, I told 
him all I had learned about the landrail from sports- 
man’s books. From the landrail I passed imper- 
ceptibly to the migration of the birds. Savka lis- 


Agafya 121 

tened attentively, looking at me without blinking, 
and smiling all the while with pleasure. 

“And which country is most the bird’s home? 
Ours or those foreign parts? ” he asked. 

“ Ours, of course. The bird itself is hatched 
here, and it hatches out its little ones here in its 
native country, and they only fly off there to escape 
being frozen.” 

“ It’s interesting,” said Savka. “ Whatever one 
talks about it is always interesting. Take a bird 
now, or a man ... or take this little stone; there’s 
something to learn about all of them. . . . Ah, sir, 
if I had known you were coming I wouldn’t have told 
a woman to come here this evening. . . . She asked 
to come to-day.” 

“ Oh, please don’t let me be in your way,” I said. 
44 1 can lie down in the wood. . . .” 

“What next! She wouldn’t have died if she 
hadn’t come till to-morrow. ... If only she would 
sit quiet and listen, but she always wants to be slob- 
bering. ... You can’t have a good talk when she’s 
here.” 

“Are you expecting Darya?” I asked, after a 
pause. 

44 No ... a new one has asked to come this 
evening . . . Agafya, the signalman’s wife.” 

Savka said this in his usual passionless, somewhat 
hollow voice, as though he were talking of tobacco 
or porridge, while I started with surprise. I knew 
Agafya. . . . She was quite a young peasant woman 
of nineteen or twenty, who had been married not 
more than a year before to a railway signalman, a 


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fine young fellow. She lived in the village, and her 
husband came home there from the line every night. 

“ Your goings on with the women will lead to 
trouble, my boy,” said I. 

“ Well, may be, . . .” 

And after a moment’s thought Savka added: 

“ I’ve said so to the women; they won’t heed me. 
. . . They don’t trouble about it, the silly things! ” 

Silence followed. . . . Meanwhile the darkness 
was growing thicker and thicker, and objects began 
to lose their contours. The streak behind the hill 
had completely died away, and the stars were grow- 
ing brighter and more luminous. . . . The mourn- 
fully monotonous chirping of the grasshoppers, the 
call of the landrail, and the cry of the quail did 
not destroy the stillness of the night, but, on the 
contrary, gave it an added monotony. It seemed as 
though the soft sounds that enchanted the ear came, 
not from birds or insects, but from the stars looking 
down upon us from the sky. . . . 

Savka was the first to break the silence. He 
slowly turned his eyes from black Kutka and said : 

“ I see you are dull, sir. Let’s have supper.” 

And without waiting for my consent he crept on 
his stomach into the shanty, rummaged about there, 
making the whole edifice tremble like a leaf; then 
he crawled back and set before me my vodka and an 
earthenware bowl; in the bowl there were baked 
eggs, lard scones made of rye, pieces of black bread, 
and something else. . . . We had a drink from 
a little crooked glass that wouldn’t stand, and then 
we fell upon the food. . . . Coarse grey salt, dirty, 


Agafya 123 

greasy cakes, eggs tough as india-rubber, but how 
nice it all was ! 

“ You live all alone, but what lots of good things 
you have,” I said, pointing to the bowl. “ Where 
do you get them from? ” 

“ The women bring them,” mumbled Savka. 

“ What do they bring them to you for? ” 

“ Oh . . . from pity.” 

Not only Savka’s menu, but his clothing, too, 
bore traces of feminine “ pity.” Thus I noticed 
that he had on, that evening, a new woven belt 
and a crimson ribbon on which a copper cross hung 
round his dirty neck. I knew of the weakness of 
the fair sex for Savka, and I knew that he did not 
like talking about it, and so I did not carry my in- 
quiries any further. Besides there was not time 
to talk. . . . Kutka, who had been fidgeting about 
near us and patiently waiting for scraps, suddenly 
pricked up his ears and growled. We heard in 
the distance repeated splashing of water. 

“ Someone is coming by the ford,” said Savka. 

Three minutes later Kutka growled again and 
made a sound like a cough. 

“ Shsh ! ” his master shouted at him. 

In the darkness there was a muffled thud of timid 
footsteps, and the silhouette of a woman appeared 
out of the copse. I recognized her, although it was 
dark — it was Agafya. She came up to us diffi- 
dently and stopped, breathing hard. She was 
breathless, probably not so much from walking as 
from fear and the unpleasant sensation everyone 
experiences in wading across a river at night. See- 


The Tales of Chekhov 


124 

ing near the shanty not one but two persons, she 
uttered a faint cry and fell back a step. 

“ Ah . . . that is you ! ” said Savka, stuffing a 
scone into his mouth. 

“ Ye-es . . . I,” she muttered, dropping on the 
ground a bundle of some sort and looking sideways 
at me. “ Yakov sent his greetings to you and told 
me to give you . . . something here. . . 

“Come, why tell stories? Yakov! ” laughed 
Savka. “There is no need for lying; the gentle- 
man knows why you have come ! Sit down ; you 
shall have supper with us.” 

Agafya looked sideways at me and sat down irres- 
olutely. 

“ I thought you weren’t coming this evening,” 
Savka said, after a prolonged silence. “ Why sit 
like that? Eat! Or shall I give you a drop of 
vodka ? ” 

“What an idea!” laughed Agafya; “do you 
think you have got hold of a drunkard? . . .” 

“Oh, drink it up. . . . Your heart will feel 
warmer. . . . There!” 

Savka gave Agafya the crooked glass. She slowly 
drank the vodka, ate nothing with it, but drew a deep 
breath when she had finished. 

“ You’ve brought something,” said Savka, unty- 
ing the bundle and throwing a condescending, jesting 
shade into his voice. “ Women can never come 
without bringing something. Ah, pie and potatoes. 
. . . They live well,” he sighed, turning to me. 
“ They are the only ones in the whole village who 
have got potatoes left from the winter! ” 


Agafya 12 $ 

In the darkness I did not see Agafya’s face, but 
from the movement of her shoulders and head it 
seemed to me that she could not take her eyes off 
Savka’s face. To avoid being the third person 
at this tryst, I decided to go for a walk and got 
up. But at that moment a nightingale in the wood 
suddenly uttered two low contralto notes. Half a 
minute later it gave a tiny high trill and then, having 
thus tried its voice, began singing. Savka jumped 
up and listened. 

“ It’s the same one as yesterday,” he said. 
“ Wait a minute.” 

And, getting up, he went noiselessly to the wood. 

“Why, what do you want with it?” I shouted 
out after him, “ Stop! ” 

Savka shook his hand as much as to say, “ Don’t 
shout,” and vanished into the darkness. Savka was 
an excellent sportsman and fisherman when he liked, 
but his talents in this direction were as completely 
thrown away as his strength. He was too slothful 
to do things in the routine way, and vented his pas- 
sion for sport in useless tricks. For instance, he 
would catch nightingales only with his hands, would 
shoot pike with a fowling piece, he would spend 
whole hours by the river trying to catch little fish 
with a big hook. 

Left alone with me, Agafya coughed and passed 
her hand several times over her forehead. . . . She 
began to feel a little drunk from the vodka. 

“How are you getting on, Agasha?” I asked 
her, after a long silence, when it began to be awk- 
ward to remain mute any longer. 


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“ Very well, thank God. . . . Don’t tell anyone, 
sir, will you? ” she added suddenly in a whisper. 

“ That’s all right,” I reassured her. “ But how 
reckless you are, Agasha! . . . What if Yakov 
finds out? ” 

“ He won’t find out.” 

“ But what if he does? ” 

“ No ... I shall be at home before he is. He 
is on the line now, and he will come back when 
the mail train brings him, and from here I can 
hear when the train’s coming. . . 

Agafya once more passed her hand over her fore- 
head and looked away in the direction in which 
Savka had vanished. The nightingale was singing. 
Some night bird flew low down close to the ground 
and, noticing us, was startled, fluttered its wings and 
flew across to the other side of the river. 

Soon the nightingale was silent, but Savka did 
not come back. Agafya got up, took a few steps 
uneasily, and sat down again. 

“ What is he doing? ” she could not refrain from 
saying. u The train’s not coming in to-morrow ! I 
shall have to go away directly.” 

“ Savka,” I shouted. “ Savka.” 

I was not answered even by an echo. Agafya 
moved uneasily and sat down again. 

“ It’s time I was going,” she said in an agitated 
voice. “The train will be here directly! I know 
when the trains come in.” 

The poor woman was not mistaken. Before a 
quarter of an hour had passed a sound was heard 
in the distance. 


Agafya 127 

Agafya kept her eyes fixed on the copse for a 
long time and moved her hands impatiently. 

“ Why, where can he be? ” she said, laughing ner- 
vously. “ Where has the devil carried him? I am 
going! I really must be going.” 

Meanwhile the. noise was growing more and more 
distinct. By now one could distinguish the rumble 
of the wheels from the heavy gasps of the engine. 
Then we heard the whistle, the train crossed the 
bridge with a hollow rumble . . . another minute 
and all was still. 

“ I’ll wait one minute more,” said Agafya, sitting 
down resolutely. u So be it, I’ll wait.” 

At last Savka appeared in the darkness. He 
walked noiselessly on the crumbling earth of the 
kitchen gardens and hummed something softly to 
himself. 

“ Here’s a bit of luck; what do you say to that 
now? ” he said gaily. “ As soon as I got up to the 
bush and began taking aim with my hand it left off 
singing! Ah, the bald dog! I waited and waited 
to see when it would begin again, but I had to give 
it up.” 

Savka flopped clumsily down to the ground be- 
side Agafya and, to keep his balance, clutched at her 
waist with both hands. 

“ Why do you look cross, as though your aunt 
were your mother? ” he asked. 

With all his soft-heartedness and good-nature, 
Savka despised women. He behaved carelessly, 
condescendingly with them, and even stooped to 
scornful laughter of their feelings for himself. God 


128 


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knows, perhaps this careless, contemptuous manner 
was one of the causes of his irresistible attraction 
for the village Dulcineas. He was handsome and 
well-built; in his eyes there was always a soft friend- 
liness, even when he was looking at the women he 
so despised, but the fascination was not to be ex- 
plained by merely external qualities. Apart from 
his happy exterior and original manner, one must 
suppose that the touching position of Savka as an 
acknowledged failure and an unhappy exile from his 
own hut to the kitchen gardens also had an influence 
upon the women. 

“ Tell the gentleman what you have come here 
for! ” Savka went on, still holding Agafya by the 
waist. “ Come, tell him, you good married woman! 
Ho-ho! Shall we have another drop of vodka, 
friend Agasha ? ” 

I got up and, threading my way between the plots, 
I walked the length of the kitchen garden. The 
dark beds looked like flattened-out graves. They 
smelt of dug earth and the tender dampness of plants 
beginning to be covered with dew. ... A red light 
was still gleaming on the left. It winked genially 
and seemed to smile. 

I heard a happy laugh. It was Agafya laughing. 

“And the train?” I thought. “The train has 
come in long ago.” 

Waiting a little longer, I went back to the shanty. 
Savka was sitting motionless, his legs crossed like 
a Turk, and was softly, scarcely audibly humming 
a song consisting of words of one syllable something 
like: “Out on you, fie on you ... I and you.” 


Agafya 129 

Agafya, intoxicated by the vodka, by Savka’s scorn- 
ful caresses, and by the stifling warmth of the night, 
was lying on the earth beside him, pressing her face 
convulsively to his knees. She was so carried away 
by her feelings that she did not even notice my ar- 
rival. 

“ Agasha, the train has been in a long time,” I 
said. 

“ It’s time — it’s time you were gone,” Savka, 
tossing his head, took up my thought. “ What are 
you sprawling here for? You shameless hussy! ” 

Agafya started, took her head from his knees, 
glanced at me, and sank down beside him again. 

“ You ought to have gone long ago,” I said. 

Agafya turned round and got up on one knee. 
. . . She was unhappy. . . . For half a minute her 
whole figure, as far as I could distinguish it through 
the darkness, expressed conflict and hesitation. 
There was an instant when, seeming to come to her- 
self, she drew herself up to get upon her feet, but 
then some invincible and implacable force seemed 
to push her whole body, and she sank down beside 
Savka again. 

“Bother him!” she said, with a wild, guttural 
laugh, and reckless determination, impotence, and 
pain could be heard in that laugh. 

I strolled quietly away to the copse, and from 
there down to the river, where our fishing lines were 
set. The river slept. Some soft, fluffy-petalled 
flower on a tall stalk touched my cheek tenderly like 
a child who wants to let one know it’s awake. To 
pass the time I felt ’for one of the lines and pulled 


The Tales of Chekhov 


130 

at it. It yielded easily and hung limply — nothing 
had been caught. . . . The further bank and the 
village could not be seen. A light gleamed in one 
hut, but soon went out. I felt my way along the 
bank, found a hollow place which I had noticed in 
the daylight, and sat down in it as in an arm-chair. 
I sat there a long time. ... I saw the stars begin 
to grow misty and lose their brightness ; a cool breath 
passed over the earth like a faint sigh and touched 
the leaves of the slumbering osiers. . . . 

“ A-ga-fya ! ” a hollow voice called from the vil- 
lage. “Agafya!” 

It was the husband, who had returned home, and 
in alarm was looking for his wife in the village. 
At that moment there came the sound of unre- 
strained laughter: the wife, forgetful of everything, 
sought in her intoxication to make up by a few 
hours of happiness for the misery awaiting her 
next day. 

I dropped asleep. 

When I woke up Savka was sitting beside me and 
lightly shaking my shoulder. The river, the copse, 
both banks, green and washed, trees and fields — all 
were bathed in bright morning light. Through the 
slim trunks of the trees the rays of the newly risen 
sun beat upon my back. 

“ So that’s how you catch fish? ” laughed Savka. 
“ Get up!” 

I got up, gave a luxurious stretch, and began 
greedily drinking in the damp and fragrant air. 

“ Has Agasha gone? ” I asked. 


Agafya 131 

“ There she is,” said Savka, pointing in the direc- 
tion of the ford. 

I glanced and saw Agafya. Dishevelled, with her 
kerchief dropping off her head, she was crossing the 
river, holding up her skirt. Her legs were scarcely 
moving. . . . 

“ The cat knows whose meat it has eaten,” mut- 
tered Savka, screwing up his eyes as he looked at 
her. “ She goes with her tail hanging down. . . . 
They are sly as cats, these women, and timid as 
hares. . . . She didn’t go, silly thing, in the even- 
ing when we told her to ! Now she will catch it, 
and they’ll flog me again at the peasant court . . . 
all on account of the women. . . .” 

Agafya stepped upon the bank and went across 
the fields to the village. At first she walked fairly 
boldly, but soon terror and excitement got the upper 
hand; she turned round fearfully, stopped and took 
breath. 

“Yes, you are frightened!” Savka laughed 
mournfully, looking at the bright green streak left by 
Agafya in the dewy grass. “ She doesn’t want to 
go! Her husband’s been standing waiting for her 
for a good hour. . . . Did you see him? ” 

Savka said the last words with a smile, but they 
sent a chill to my heart. In the village, near the 
furthest hut, Yakov was standing in the road, gazing 
fixedly at his returning wife. He stood without 
stirring, and was as motionless as a post. What was 
he thinking as he looked at her? What words was 
he preparing to greet her with? Agafya stood still 


The Tales of Chekhov 


132 

a little while, looked round once more as though 
expecting help from us, and went on. I have never 
seen anyone, drunk or sober, move as she did. 
Agafya seemed to be shrivelled up by her husband’s 
eyes. At one time she moved in zigzags, then she 
moved her feet up and down without going forward, 
bending her knees and stretching out her hands, then 
she staggered back. When she had gone another 
hundred paces she looked round once more and sat 
down. 

“ You ought at least to hide behind a bush . . .” 
I said to Savka. “ If the husband sees you . . 

“ He knows, anyway, who it is Agafya has come 
from. . . . The women don’t go to the kitchen 
garden at night for cabbages — we all know that.” 

I glanced at Savka’s face. It was pale and 
puckered up with a look of fastidious pity such as 
one sees in the faces of people watching tortured 
animals. 

“ What’s fun for the cat is tears for the mouse 
. . he muttered. 

Agafya suddenly jumped up, shook her head, and 
with a bold step went towards her husband. She 
had evidently plucked up her courage and made up 
her mind. 


AT CHRISTMAS TIME 



AT CHRISTMAS TIME 

I 

“ What shall I write? ” said Yegor, and he dipped 
his pen in the ink. 

Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years. 
Her daughter Yefimya had gone after her wedding 
to Petersburg, had sent them two letters, and since 
then. seemed to vanish out of their lives; there had 
been no sight nor sound of her. And whether the 
old woman were milking her cow at dawn, or heat- 
ing her stove, or dozing at night, she was always 
thinking of one and the same thing — what was 
happening to Yefimya, whether she were alive out 
yonder. She ought to have sent a letter, but the 
old father could not write, and there was no one to 
Write. 

But now Christmas had come, and Vasilisa could 
not bear it any longer, and went to the tavern to 
Yegor, the brother of the innkeeper’s wife, who 
had sat in the tavern doing nothing ever since he 
came back from the army; people said that he could 
write letters very well if he were properly paid. 
Vasilisa talked to the cook at the tavern, then to 
the mistress of the house, then to Yegor himself. 
They agreed upon fifteen kopecks. 

And now — it happened on the second day of 
the holidays, in the tavern kitchen — Yegor was 
i3S 


136 The Tales of Chekhov 

sitting at the table, holding the pen in his hand. 
Vasilisa was standing before him, pondering with 
an expression of anxiety and woe on her face. 
Pyotr, her husband, a very thin old man with a 
brownish bald patch, had come with her; he stood 
looking straight before him like a blind man. On 
the stove a piece of pork was being braised in a 
saucepan; it was spurting and hissing, and seemed 
to be actually saying: “Flu-flu-flu.” It was sti- 
fling. 

“ What am I to write? ” Yegor asked again. 

“ What? ” asked Vasilisa, looking at him angrily 
and suspiciously. “ Don’t worry me ! You are not 
writing for nothing; no fear, you’ll be paid for it. 
Come, write: ‘To our dear son-in-law, Andrey 
Hrisanfitch, and to our only beloved daughter, Yefi- 
mya Petrovna, with our love we send a low bow 
and our parental blessing abiding for ever.’ ” 

“ Written; fire away.” 

“ ‘ And we wish them a happy Christmas; we are 
alive and well, and I wish you the same, please the 
Lord . . . the Heavenly King.’ ” 

Vasilisa pondered and exchanged glances with the 
old man. 

“ ‘ And I wish you the same, please the Lord 
. . . the Heavenly King,’ ” she repeated, beginning 
to cry. 

She could say nothing more. And yet before, 
when she lay awake thinking at night, it had seemed 
to her that she could not get all she had to say into 
a dozen letters. Since the time when her daughter 
had gone away with her husband much water had 


At Christmas Time 137 

flowed into the sea, the old people had lived feeling 
bereaved, and sighed heavily at night as though they 
had buried their daughter. And how many events 
had occurred in the village since then, how many 
marriages and deaths! How long the winters had 
been ! How long the nights ! 

“ It’s hot,” said Yegor, unbuttoning his waist- 
coat. “ It must be seventy degrees. What more ? ” 
he asked. 

The old people were silent. 

“ What does your son-in-law do in Petersburg? ” 
asked Yegor. 

“ He was a soldier, my good friend,” the old 
man answered in a weak voice. “ He left the serv- 
ice at the same time as you did. He was a soldier, 
and now, to be sure, he is at Petersburg at a hydro- 
pathic establishment. The doctor treats the sick 
with water. So he, to be sure, is house-porter at 
the doctor’s.” 

“ Here it is written down,” said the old woman, 
taking a letter out of her pocket. “ We got it from 
Yefimya, goodness knows when. Maybe they are 
no longer in this world.” 

Yegor thought a little and began writing rap- 
idly : 

“ At the present time ” — he wrote — “ since your 
destiny through your own doing allotted you to the 
Military Career, we counsel you to look into the 
Code of Disciplinary Offences and Fundamental 
Laws of the War Office, and you will see in that 
law the Civilization of the Officials of the War 
Office.” 


138 The Tales of Chekhov 

He wrote and kept reading aloud what was writ- 
ten, while Vasilisa considered what she ought to 
write: how great had been their want the year 
before, how their corn had not lasted even till Christ- 
mas, how they had to sell their cow. She ought 
to ask for money, ought to write that the old father 
was often ailing and would soon no doubt give up 
his soul to God . . . but how to express this in 
words? What must be said first and what after- 
wards? 

“ Take note,” Yegor went on writing, “ in vol- 
ume five of the Army Regulations soldier is a com- 
mon noun and a proper one, a soldier of the first 
rank is called a general, and of the last a pri- 
vate. . . 

The old man stirred his lips and said softly: 

“ It would be all right to have a look at the 
grandchildren.” 

“What grandchildren?” asked the old woman, 
and she looked angrily at him; “ perhaps there are 
none.” 

“Well, but perhaps there are. Who knows?” 

“ And thereby you can judge,” Yegor hurried 
on, “ what is the enemy without and what is the 
enemy within. The foremost of our enemies within 
is Bacchus.” The pen squeaked, executing upon the 
paper flourishes like fish-hooks. Yegor hastened 
and read over every line several times. He sat on 
a stool sprawling his broad feet under the table, 
well-fed, bursting with health, with a coarse animal 
face and a red bull neck. He was vulgarity itself: 
coarse, conceited, invincible, proud of having been 


At Christmas Time 139 

born and bred in a pot-house; and Vasilisa quite 
understood the vulgarity, but could not express it 
in words, and could only look angrily and suspi- 
ciously at Yegor. Her head was beginning to ache, 
and her thoughts were in confusion from the sound 
of his voice and his unintelligible words, from the 
heat and the stuffiness, and she said nothing and 
thought nothing, but simply waited for him to fin- 
ish scribbling. But the old man looked with full 
confidence. He believed in his old woman who had 
brought him there, and in Yegor; and when he had 
mentioned the hydropathic establishment it could be 
seen that he believed in the establishment and the 
healing efficacy of water. 

Having finished the letter, Yegor got up and 
read the whole of it through from the beginning. 
The old man did not understand, but he nodded his 
head trustfully. 

“That’s all right; it is smooth . . he said. 
“ God give you health. That’s all right. . . .” 

They laid on the table three five-kopeck pieces 
and went out of the tavern; the old man looked 
immovably straight before him as though he were 
blind, and perfect trustfulness was written on his 
face; but as Vasilisa came out of the tavern she 
waved angrily at the dog, and said angrily: 

“ Ugh, the plague.” 

The old woman did not sleep all night; she was 
disturbed by thoughts, and at daybreak she got up, 
said her prayers, and went to the station to send off 
the letter. 

It was between eight and nine miles to the station. 


140 


The Tales of Chekhov 


II 

Dr. B. O. Mozelweiser’s hydropathic establish- 
ment worked on New Year’s Day exactly as on 
ordinary days; the only difference was that the por- 
ter, Andrey Hrisanfitch, had on a uniform with new 
braiding, his boots had an extra polish, and he 
greeted every visitor with “A Happy New Year 
to you ! ” 

It was the morning; Andrey Hrisanfitch was 
standing at the door, reading the newspaper. Just 
at ten o’clock there arrived a general, one of the 
habitual visitors, and directly after him the post- 
man; Andrey Hrisanfitch helped the general off with 
his great-coat, and said: 

“ A Happy New Year to your Excellency! ” 

“ Thank you, my good fellow; the same to you.” 

And at the top of the stairs the general asked, 
nodding towards the door (he asked the same ques- 
tion every day and always forgot the answer) : 

“ And what is there in that room? ” 

“ The massage room, your Excellency.” 

When the general’s steps had died away Andrey 
Hrisanfitch looked at the post that had come, and 
found one addressed to himself. He tore it open, 
read several lines, then, looking at the newspaper, 
he walked without haste to his own room, which 
was downstairs close by at the end of the passage. 
His wife Yefimya was sitting on the bed, feeding 
her baby; another child, the eldest, was standing 


At Christmas Time 141 

by, laying its curly head on her knee; a third was 
asleep on the bed. 

Going into the room, Andrey gave his wife the 
letter and said: 

“ From the country, I suppose.” 

Then he walked out again without taking his 
eyes from the paper. He could hear Yefimya with 
a shaking voice reading the first lines. She read 
them and could read no more; these lines were 
enough for her. She burst into tears, and hugging 
her eldest child, kissing him, she began saying — 
and it was hard to say whether she were laughing 
or crying: 

“ It’s from granny, from grandfather,” she said. 
“ From the country. . . . The Heavenly Mother, 
Saints and Martyrs ! The snow lies heaped up un- 
der the roofs now . . . the trees are as white as 
white. The boys slide on little sledges . . . and 
dear old bald grandfather is on the stove . . . and 
there is a little yellow dog. . . . My own darlings ! ” 

Andrey Hrisanfitch, hearing this, recalled that his 
wife had on three or four occasions given him letters 
and asked him to send them to the country, but some 
important business had always prevented him; he 
had not sent them, and the letters somehow got lost. 

“ And little hares run about in the fields,” Yefimya 
went on chanting, kissing her boy and shedding tears. 
“ Grandfather is kind and gentle; granny is good, 
too — kind-hearted. They are warm-hearted in the 
country, they are God-fearing . . . and there is a 
little church in the village; the peasants sing in the 


142 The Tales of Chekhov 

choir. Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and De- 
fender, take us away from here ! ” 

Andrey Hrisanfitch returned to his room to smoke 
a little till there was another ring at the door, and 
Yefimya ceased speaking, subsided, and wiped her 
eyes, though her lips were still quivering. She was 
very much frightened of him — oh, how frightened 
of him ! She trembled and was reduced to terror by 
the sound of his steps, by the look in his eyes, and 
dared not utter a word in his presence. 

Andrey Hrisanfitch lighted a cigarette, but at 
that very moment there was a ring from upstairs. 
He put out his cigarette, and, assuming a very grave 
face, hastened to his front door. 

The general was coming downstairs, fresh and 
rosy from his bath. 

“And what is there in that room?” he asked, 
pointing to a door. 

Andrey Hrisanfitch put his hands down swiftly 
to the seams of his trousers, and pronounced loudly: 

“ Charcot douche, your Excellency! ” 


GUSEV 



GUSEV 


I 

It was getting dark; it would soon be night. 

Gusev, a discharged soldier, sat up in his ham- 
mock and said in an undertone : 

“ I say, Pavel Ivanitch. A soldier at Sutchan 
told me: while they were sailing a big fish came 
into collision with their ship and stove a hole in it.” 

The nondescript individual whom he was address- 
ing, and whom everyone in the ship’s hospital called 
Pavel Ivanitch, was silent, as though he had not 
heard. 

And again a stillness followed. . . . The wind 
frolicked with the rigging, the screw throbbed, the 
waves lashed, the hammocks creaked, but the ear 
had long ago become accustomed to these sounds, 
and it seemed that everything around was asleep 
and silent. It was dreary. The three invalids — 
two soldiers and a sailor — who had been playing 
cards all the day were asleep and talking in their 
dreams. 

It seemed as though the ship were beginning to 
rock. The hammock slowly rose and fell under 
Gusev, as though it were heaving a sigh, and this 
was repeated once, twice, three times. . . . Some- 
thing crashed on to the floor with a clang: it must 
have been a jug falling down. 

145 


146 The Tales of Chekhov 

“ The wind has broken loose from its chain . . . 
said Gusev, listening. 

This -time Pavel Ivanitch cleared his throat and 
answered irritably: 

“ One minute a vessel’s running into a fish, the 
next, the wind’s breaking loose from its chain. . . . 
Is the wind a beast that it can break loose from its 
chain? ” 

“ That’s how christened folk talk.” 

“ They are as ignorant as you are then. . . . 
They say all sorts of things. One must keep a head 
on one’s shoulders and use one’s reason. You are 
a senseless creature.” 

Pavel Ivanitch was subject to sea-sickness. When 
the sea was rough he was usually ill-humoured, and 
the merest trifle would make him irritable. And 
in Gusev’s opinion there was absolutely nothing to 
be vexed about. What was there strange or won- 
derful, for instance, in the fish or in the wind’s 
breaking loose from its chain? Suppose the fish 
were as big as a mountain and its back were as hard 
as a sturgeon : and in the same way, supposing that 
away yonder at the end of the world there stood 
great stone walls and the fierce winds were chained 
up to the walls ... if they had not broken loose, 
why did they tear about all over the sea like maniacs, 
and struggle to escape like dogs? If they were not 
chained up, what did become of them when it was 
calm? 

Gusev pondered for a long time about fishes as 
big as a mountain and stout, rusty chains, then he 
began to feel dull and thought of his native place to 


Gusev 


147 

which he was returning after five years’ service in 
the East. He pictured an immense pond covered 
with snow. . . . On one side of the pond the red- 
brick building of the potteries with a tall chimney 
and clouds of black smoke ; on the other side — a 
village. . . . His brother Alexey comes out in a 
sledge from the fifth yard from the end; behind him 
sits his little son Vanka in big felt over-boots, and 
his little girl Akulka, also in big felt boots. Alexey 
has been drinking, Vanka is laughing, Akulka’s face 
he could not see, she had muffled herself up. 

“ You never know, he’ll get the children 
frozen . . .” thought Gusev. “ Lord send them 
sense and judgment that they may honour their 
father and mother and not be wiser than their par- 
ents.” 

“ They want re-soleing,” a delirious sailor says in 
a bass voice. “ Yes, yes ! ” 

Gusev’s thoughts break off, and instead of a pond 
there suddenly appears apropos of nothing a huge 
bull’s head without eyes, and the horse and sledge 
are not driving along, but are whirling round and 
round in a cloud of smoke. But still he was glad 
he had seen his own folks. He held his breath 
from delight, shudders ran all over him, and his 
fingers twitched. 

“ The Lord let us meet again,” he muttered 
feverishly, but he at once opened his eyes and sought 
in the darkness for water. 

He drank and lay back, and again the sledge was 
moving, then again the bull’s head without eyes, 
smoke, clouds. . . . And so on till daybreak. 


148 The Tales of Chekhov 


II 

The first outline visible in the darkness was a 
blue circle — the little round window; then little 
by little Gusev could distinguish his neighbour in 
the next hammock, Pavel Ivanitch. The man slept 
sitting up, as he could not breathe lying down. His 
face was grey, his nose was long and sharp, his eyes 
looked huge from the terrible thinness of his face, 
his temples were sunken, his beard was skimpy, his 
hair was long. . . . Looking at him you could not 
make out of what class he was, whether he were a 
gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant. Judging from 
his expression and his long hair he might have been 
a hermit or a lay brother in a monastery — but if 
one listened to what he said it seemed that he 
could not be a monk. He was worn out by his 
cough and his illness and by the stifling heat, and 
breathed with difficulty, moving his parched lips. 
Noticing that Gusev was looking at him he turned 
his face towards him and said: 

“ I begin to guess. . . . Yes. ... I understand 
it all perfectly now.” 

“ What do you understand, Pavel Ivanitch? ” 

“ I’ll tell you. ... It has always seemed to me 
strange that terribly ill as you are you should be 
here in a steamer where it is so hot and stifling 
and we are always being tossed up and down, where, 
in fact, everything threatens you with death; now 
it is all clear to me. . . . Yes. . . . Your doctors 
put you on the steamer to get rid of you. They 


Gusev 


149 

get sick of looking after poor brutes like you. . . . 
You don’t pay them anything, they have a bother 
with you, and you damage their records with your 
deaths — so, of course, you are brutes ! It’s not 
difficult to get rid of you. . . . All that is necessary 
is, in the first place, to have no conscience or hu- 
manity, and, secondly, to deceive the steamer author- 
ities. The first condition need hardly be considered, 
in that respect we are artists; and one can always 
succeed in the second with a little practice. In a 
crowd of four hundred healthy soldiers and sailors 
half a dozen sick ones are not conspicuous; well, 
they drove you all on to the steamer, mixed you with 
the healthy ones, hurriedly counted you over, and in 
the confusion nothing amiss was noticed, and when 
the steamer had started they saw that there were 
paralytics and consumptives in the last stage lying 
about on the deck. . . .” 

Gusev did not understand Pavel Ivanitch; but sup- 
posing he was being blamed, he said in self-defence : 

“ I lay on the deck because I had not the strength 
to stand; when we were unloaded from the barge 
on to the ship I caught a fearful chill.” 

“ It’s revolting,” Pavel Ivanitch went on. “ The 
worst of it is they know perfectly well that you can’t 
last out the long journey, and yet they put you here. 
Supposing you get as far as the Indian Ocean, what 
then? It’s horrible to think of it. . . . And that’s 
their gratitude for your faithful, irreproachable 
service ! ” 

Pavel Ivanitch’s eyes looked angry; he frowned 
contemptuously and said, gasping: 


150 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“ Those are the people who ought to be plucked 
in the newspapers till the feathers fly in all direc- 
tions.” 

The two sick soldiers and the sailor were awake 
and already playing cards. The sailor was half re- 
clining in his hammock, the soldiers were sitting near 
him on the floor in the most uncomfortable attitudes. 
One of the soldiers had his right arm in a sling, 
and the hand was swathed up in a regular bundle 
so that he held his cards under his right arm or 
in the crook of his elbow while he played with the 
left. The ship was rolling heavily. They could 
not stand up, nor drink tea, nor take their medi- 
cines. 

“ Were you an officer’s servant? ” Pavel Ivanitch 
asked Gusev. 

“ Yes, an officer’s servant.” 

“ My God, my God! ” said Pavel Ivanitch, and 
he shook his head mournfully. “To tear a man 
out of his home, drag him twelve thousand miles 
away, then to drive him into consumption and . . . 
and what is it all for, one wonders? To turn him 
into a servant for some Captain Kopeikin or mid- 
shipman Dirka ! How logical ! ” 

“ It’s not hard work, Pavel Ivanitch. You get 
up in the morning and clean the boots, get the 
samovar, sweep the rooms, and then you have noth- 
ing more to do. The lieutenant is all the day draw- 
ing plans, and if you like you can say your prayers, 
if you like you can read a book or go out into the 
street. God grant everyone such a life.” 

“ Yes, very nice, the lieutenant draws plans all 


Gusev 


151 

the day and you sit in the kitchen and pine for 
home. . . . Plans indeed ! ... It is not plans that 
matter, but a human life. Life is not given twice, it 
must be treated mercifully.” 

“ Of course, Pavel Ivanitch, a bad man gets no 
miercy anywhere, neither at home nor in the army, 
but if you live as you ought and obey orders, who 
has any need to insult you? The officers are edu- 
cated gentlemen, they understand. ... In five years 
I was never once in prison, and I was never struck 
a blow, so help me God, but once.” 

“ What for?” 

“ For fighting. I have a heavy hand, Pavel Ivan- 
itch. Four Chinamen came into our yard; they 
were bringing firewood or something, I don’t re- 
member. Well, I was bored and I knocked them 
about a bit, one’s nose began bleeding, damn the 
fellow. . . . The lieutenant saw it through the little 
window, he was angry and gave me a box on the 
ear.” 

“ Foolish, pitiful man . . .” whispered Pavel 
Ivanitch. “ You don’t understand anything.” 

He was utterly exhausted by the tossing of the 
ship and closed his eyes; his head alternately fell 
back and dropped forward on his breast. Several 
times he tried to lie down but nothing came of it; 
his difficulty in breathing prevented it. 

“ And what did you hit the four Chinamen for? ” 
he asked a little while afterwards. 

“ Oh, nothing. They came into the yard and I 
hit them.” 

And a stillness followed. . . . The card-players 


The Tales of Chekhov 


152 

had been playing for two hours with enthusiasm 
and loud abuse of one another, but the motion of 
the ship overcame them, too; they threw aside the 
cards and lay down. Again Gusev saw the big 
pond, the brick building, the village. . . . Again 
the sledge was coming along, again Vanka was laugh- 
ing and Akulka, silly little thing, threw open her fur 
coat and stuck her feet out, as much as to say: 
“ Look, good people, my snowboots are not like 
Vanka’s, they are new ones.” 

“ Five years old, and she has no sense yet,” Gusev 
muttered in delirium. “ Instead of kicking your legs 
you had better come and get your soldier uncle a 
drink. I will give you something nice.” 

Then Andron with a flintlock gun on his shoulder 
was carrying a hare he had killed, and he was fol- 
lowed by the decrepit old Jew Isaitchik, who offers 
to barter the hare for a piece of soap; then the 
black calf in the shed, then Domna sewing at a shirt 
and crying about something, and then again the 
bull’s head without eyes, black smoke. . . . 

Overhead someone gave a loud shout, several 
sailors ran by, they seemed to be dragging some- 
thing bulky over the deck, something fell with a 
crash. Again they ran by. . . . Had something 
gone wrong? Gusev raised his head, listened, and 
saw that the two soldiers and the sailor were play- 
ing cards again; Pavel Ivanitch was sitting up mov- 
ing his lips. It was stifling, one hadn’t strength to 
breathe, one was thirsty, the water was warm, dis- 
gusting. The ship heaved as much as ever. 

Suddenly something strange happened to one of 


Gusev 


153 

the soldiers playing cards. . . . He called hearts 
diamonds, got muddled in his score, and dropped 
his cards, then with a frightened, foolish smile 
looked round at all of them. 

“ I shan’t be a minute, mates, I’ll . . he said, 
and lay down on the floor. 

Everybody was amazed. They called to him, he 
did not answer. 

“Stephan, maybe you are feeling bad, eh?” the 
soldier with his arm in a sling asked him. “ Per- 
haps we had better bring the priest, eh? ” 

“ Have a drink of water, Stepan . . .” said the 
sailor. “ Here, lad, drink.” 

u Why are you knocking the jug against his 
teeth?” said Gusev angrily. “ Don’t you see, tur- 
nip head? ’ 

“ What?” 

“What?” Gusev repeated, mimicking him. 
“There is no breath in him, he is dead! That’s 
what! What nonsensical people, Lord have mercy 
on us . . . I ” 


III 

The ship was not rocking and Pavel Ivanitch was 
more cheerful. He was no longer ill-humoured. 
His face had a boastful, defiant, mocking expres- 
sion. He looked as though he wanted to say: 
“ Yes, in a minute I will tell you something that will 
make you split your sides with laughing.” The lit- 
tle round window was open and a soft breeze was 
blowing on Pavel Ivanitch. There was a sound of 


The Tales of Chekhov 


154 

voices, of the plash of oars in the water. . , . Just 
under the little window someone began droning in 
a high, unpleasant voice: no doubt it was a China- 
man singing. 

“ Here we are in the harbour,” said Pavel Ivan- 
itch, smiling ironically. “ Only another month and 
we shall be in Russia. Well, worthy gentlemen and 
warriors ! I shall arrive at Odessa and from there 
go straight to Harkov. In Harkov I have a friend, 
a literary man. I shall go to him and say, ‘ Come, 
old man, put aside your horrid subjects, ladies’ 
amours and the beauties of nature, and show up 
human depravity.’ ” 

For a minute he pondered, then said: 

“ Gusev, do you know how I took them in? ” 

“ Took in whom, Pavel Ivanitch? ” 

“Why, these fellows. ... You know that on 
this steamer there is only a first-class and a third- 
class, and they only allow peasants — that is the 
riff-raff — to go in the third. If you have got on 
a reefer jacket and have the faintest resemblance 
to a gentleman or a bourgeois you must go first- 
class, if you please. You must fork out five hun- 
dred roubles if you die for it. Why, I ask, have 
you made such a rule? Do you want to raise the 
prestige of educated Russians thereby? Not a bit 
of it. We don’t let you go third-class simply be- 
cause a decent person can’t go third-class; it is very 
horrible and disgusting. Yes, indeed. I am very 
grateful for such solicitude for decent people’s wel- 
fare. But in any case, whether it is nasty there or 
nice, five hundred roubles I haven’t got. I haven’t 


Gusev 


*55 

pilfered government money. I haven’t exploited the 
natives, I haven’t trafficked in contraband, I have 
no one to death, so judge whether I have the 
right to travel first-class and even less to reckon 
myself of the educated class? But you won’t catch 
them with logic. . . . One has to resort to decep- 
tion. I put on a workman’s coat and high boots, 
I assumed a drunken, servile mug and went to the 
agents: ‘ Give us a little ticket, your honour,’ said 
I. . . 

“Why, what class do you belong to?” asked a 
sailor. 

“ Clerical. My father was an honest priest, he 
always told the great ones of the world the truth to 
their faces; and he had a great deal to put up with 
in consequence.” 

Pavel Ivanitch was exhausted with talking and 
gasped for breath, but still went on : 

“ Yes, I always tell people the truth to their faces. 
I am not afraid of anyone or anything. There is 
a vast difference between me and all of you in that 
respect. You are in darkness, you are blind, 
crushed; you see nothing and what you do see you 
don’t understand. ... You are told the wind 
breaks loose from its chain, that you are beasts, 
Petchenyegs, and you believe it; they punch you in 
the neck, you kiss their hands; some animal in a 
sable-lined coat robs you and then tips you fifteen 
kopecks and you: ‘Let me kiss your hand, sir.’ 
You are pariahs, pitiful people. ... I am a differ- 
ent sort. My eyes are open, I see it all as clearly 
as a hawk or an eagle when it floats over the earth, 


156 The Tales of Chekhov 

and I understand it all. I am a living protest. I 
see irresponsible tyranny — I protest. I see cant 
and hypocrisy — I protest. I see swine triumphant 
— I protest. And I cannot be suppressed, no Span- 
ish Inquisition can make me hold my tongue. No. 
. . . Cut out my tongue and I would protest in 
dumb show; shut me up in a cellar — I will shout 
from it to be heard half a mile away, or I will starve 
myself to death that they may have another weight 
on their black consciences. Kill me and I will 
haunt them with my ghost. All my acquaintances 
say to me: ‘You are a most insufferable person, 
Pavel Ivanitch.’ I am proud of such a reputation. 
I have served three years in the far East, and I 
shall be remembered there for a hundred years: 
I had rows with everyone. My friends write to me 
from Russia, ‘ Don’t come back,’ but here I am 
going back to spite them . . . yes. . . . That is 
life as I understand it. That is what one can call 
life.” 

Gusev was looking at the little window and was 
not listening. A boat was swaying on the trans- 
parent, soft, turquoise water all bathed in hot, daz- 
zling sunshine. In it there were naked Chinamen 
holding up cages with canaries and calling out: 

“ It sings, it sings ! ” 

Another boat knocked against the first ; the steam 
cutter darted by. And then there came another boat 
with a fat Chinaman sitting in it, eating rice with 
little sticks. 

Languidly the water heaved, languidly the white 
seagulls floated over it. 


Gusev 


157 

“ I should like to give that fat fellow one in the 
neck,” thought Gusev, gazing at the stout China- 
man, with a yawn. 

He dozed off, and it seemed to him that all 
nature was dozing, too. Time flew swiftly by; im- 
perceptibly the day passed, imperceptibly the dark- 
ness came on. . . . The steamer was no longer 
standing still, but moving on further. 

IV 

Two days passed, Pavel Ivanitch lay down in- 
stead of sitting up; his eyes were closed, his nose 
seemed to have grown sharper. 

“ Pavel Ivanitch,” Gusev called to him. “ Hey, 
Pavel Ivanitch.” 

Pavel Ivanitch opened his eyes and moved his 
lips. 

“ Are you feeling bad? ” 

“ No . . . it’s nothing . . answered Pavel 
Ivanitch, gasping. “ Nothing; on the contrary . . . 
I am rather better. ... You see I can lie down. 
. . . I am a little easier. . . .” 

“ Well, thank God for that, Pavel Ivanitch.” 

“ When I compare myself with you I am sorry 
for you . . . poor fellow. My lungs are all right, 
it is only a stomach cough. ... I can stand hell, 
let alone the Red Sea. Besides I take a critical 
attitude to my illness and to the medicines they 
give me for it. While you . . . you are in dark- 
ness. . . . It’s hard for you, very, very hard ! ” 

The ship was not rolling, it was calm, but as hot 


158 The Tales of Chekhov 

and stifling as a bath-house; it was not only hard to 
speak but even hard to listen. Gusev hugged his 
knees, laid his head on them and thought of his 
home. Good heavens, what a relief it was to think 
of snow and cold in that stifling heat! You drive 
in a sledge, all at once the horses take fright at 
something and bolt. . . . Regardless of the road, 
the ditches, the ravines, they dash like mad things, 
right through the village, over the pond by the pot- 
tery works, out across the open Helds. “ Hold on,” 
the pottery hands and the peasants shout, meeting 
them. “ Hold on.” But why? Let the keen, cold 
wind beat in one’s face and bite one’s hands; let the 
lumps of snow, kicked up by the horses’ hoofs, 
fall on one’s cap, on one’s back, down one’s collar, 
on one’s chest; let the runners ring on the snow, and 
the traces and the sledge be smashed, deuce take 
them one and all! And how delightful when the 
sledge upsets and you go flying full tilt into a drift, 
face downwards in the snow, and then you get up 
white all over with icicles on your moustaches; no 
cap, no gloves, your belt undone. . . . People laugh, 
the dogs bark. . . . 

Pavel Ivanitch half opened one eye, looked at 
Gusev with it, and asked softly: 

“ Gusev, did your commanding officer steal? ” 

“Who can tell, Pavel Ivanitch! Wc can’t say, 
it didn’t reach us.” 

And after that a long time passed in silence. 
Gusev brooded, muttered something in delirium, and 
kept drinking water; it was hard for him to talk 
and hard to listen, and he was afraid of being talked 


Gusev 


159 

to. An hour passed, a second, a third; evening came 
on, then night, but he did not notice it. He still 
sat dreaming of the frost. 

There was a sound as though someone came into 
the hospital, and voices were audible, but a few min- 
utes passed and all was still again. 

“ The Kingdom of Heaven and eternal peace,” 
said the soldier with his arm in a sling. “ He was 
an uncomfortable man.” 

“ What ? ” asked Gusev. “ Who ? ” 

“ He is dead, they have just carried him up.” 

“ Oh, well,” muttered Gusev, yawning, “ the King- 
dom of Heaven be his.” 

“ What do you think? ” the soldier with his arm 
in a sling asked Gusev. “ Will he be in the King- 
dom of Heaven or not? ” 

“ Who is it you are talking about? ” 

“ Pavel Ivanitch.” 

“ He will be ... he suffered so long. And there 
is another thing, he belonged to the clergy, and the 
priests always have a lot of relations. Their pray- 
ers will save him.” 

The soldier with the sling sat down on a ham- 
mock near Gusev and said in an undertone: 

“ And you, Gusev, are not long for this world. 
You will never get to Russia.” 

“ Did the doctor or his assistant say so? ” asked 
Gusev. 

“ It isn’t that they said so, but one can see it. . . . 
One can see directly when a man’s going to die. 
You don’t eat, you don’t drink; it’s dreadful to see 
how thin you’ve got. It’s consumption, in fact. I 


i6o 


The Tales of Chekhov 


say it, not to upset you, but because maybe you 
would like to have the sacrament and extreme unc- 
tion. And if you have any money you had better 
give it to the senior officer.” 

“ I haven’t written home . . Gusev sighed. 
“ I shall die and they won’t know.” 

“ They’ll hear of it,” the sick sailor brought out 
in a bass voice. “ When you die they will put it 
down in the Gazette, at Odessa they will send in a 
report to the commanding officer there and he will 
send it to the parish or somewhere. . . .” 

Gusev began to be uneasy after such a conversa- 
tion and to feel a vague yearning. He drank wa- 
ter — it was not that; he dragged himself to the 
window and breathed the hot, moist air — it was 
not that; he tried to think of home, of the frost — 
it was not that. ... At last it seemed to him one 
minute longer in the ward and he would certainly 
expire. 

“ It’s stifling, mates . . .” he said. “ I’ll go on 
deck. Help me up, for Christ’s sake.” 

“ All right,” assented the soldier with the sling. 
“ I’ll carry you, you can’t walk, hold on to my neck.” 

Gusev put his arm round the soldier’s neck, the 
latter put his unhurt arm round him and carried 
him up. On the deck sailors and time-expired sol- 
diers were lying asleep side by side; there were so 
many of them it was difficult to pass. 

“ Stand down,” the soldier with the sling said 
softly. “ Follow me quietly, hold on to my 
shirt. . . .” 

It was dark. There was no light on deck, nor 


Gusev 


161 

on the masts, nor anywhere on the sea around. At 
the furthest end of the ship the man on watch was 
standing perfectly still like a statue, and it looked 
as though he were asleep. It seemed as though the 
steamer were abandoned to itself and were going 
at its own will. 

“ Now they will throw Pavel Ivanitch into the 
sea,” said the soldier with the sling. “ In a sack 
and then into the water.” 

“ Yes, that’s the rule.” 

“ But it’s better to lie at home in the earth. Any- 
way, your mother comes to the grave and weeps.” 

“ Of course.” 

There was a smell of hay and of dung. There 
were oxen standing with drooping heads by the 
ship’s rail. One, two, three; eight of theml And 
there was a little horse. Gusev put out his hand 
to stroke it, but it shook its head, showed its teeth, 
and tried to bite his sleeve. 

“ Damned brute . . .” said Gusev angrily. 

The two of them, he and the soldier, threaded 
their way to the head of the ship, then stood at 
the rail and looked up and down. Overhead deep 
sky, bright stars, peace and stillness, exactly as at 
home in the village, below darkness and disorder. 
The tall waves were resounding, no one could tell 
why. Whichever wave you looked at each one was 
trying to rise higher than all the rest and to chase 
and crush the next one; after it a third as fierce 
and hideous flew noisily, with a glint of light on its 
white crest. 

The sea has no sense and no pity. If the steamer 


162 


The Tales of Chekhov 


had been smaller and not made of thick iron, the 
waves would have crushed it to pieces without the 
slightest compunction, and would have devoured all 
the people in it with no distinction of saints or sin- 
ners. The steamer had the same cruel and mean- 
ingless expression. This monster with its huge beak 
was dashing onwards, cutting millions of waves in 
its path; it had no fear of the darkness nor the wind, 
nor of space, nor of solitude, caring for nothing, 
and if the ocean had its people, this monster would 
have crushed them, too, without distinction of saints 
or sinners. 

“ Where are we now? ” asked Gusev. 

“ I don’t know. We must be in the ocean.” 

“ There is no sight of land. . 

“ No indeed ! They say we shan’t see it for seven 
days.” 

The two soldiers watched the white foam with 
the phosphorus light on it and were silent, think- 
ing. Gusev was the first to break the silence. 

“ There is nothing to be afraid of,” he said, 
“ only one is full of dread as though one were sit- 
ting in a dark forest; but if, for instance, they let 
a boat down on to the water this minute and an 
officer ordered me to go a hundred miles over the 
sea to catch fish, I’d go. Or, let’s say, if a Chris- 
tian were to fall into the water this minute, I’d go 
in after him. A German or a Chinaman I wouldn’t 
save, but I’d go in after a Christian.” 

“ And are you afraid to die? ” 

“Yes. I am sorry for the folks at home. My 
brother at home, you know, isn’t steady; he drinks, 


Gusev 


163 

he beats his wife for nothing, he does not honour 
his parents. Everything will go to ruin without 
me, and father and my old mother will be begging 
their bread, I shouldn’t wonder. But my legs won’t 
bear me, brother, and it’s hot here. Let’s go to 
sleep.” 

V 

Gusev went back to the ward - and got into his 
hammock. He was again tormented by a vague 
craving, and he could not make out what he wanted. 
There was an oppression on his chest, a throbbing 
in his head, his mouth was so dry that it was diffi- 
cult for him to move his tongue. He dozed, and 
murmured in his sleep, and, worn out with night- 
mares, his cough, and the stifling heat, towards 
morning he fell into a sound sleep. He dreamed 
that they were just taking the bread out of the oven 
in the barracks and he climbed into the stove and 
had a steam bath in it, lashing himself with a bunch 
of birch twigs. He slept for two days, and at mid- 
day on the third two sailors came down and carried 
him out. 

He was sewn up in sailcloth and to make him 
heavier they put with him two iron weights. Sewn 
up in the sailcloth he looked like a carrot or a radish : 
broad at the head and narrow at the feet. . . . Be- 
fore sunset they brought him up to the deck and 
put him on a plank; one end of the plank lay on 
the side of the ship, the other on a box, placed on a 
stool. Round him stood the soldiers and the offi- 
cers with their caps off. 


164 The Tales of Chekhov 

“ Blessed be the Name of the Lord . . the 
priest began. “ As it was in the beginning, is now, 
and ever shall be.” 

“ Amen,” chanted three sailors. 

The soldiers and the officers crossed themselves 
and looked away at the waves. It was strange that 
a man should be sewn up in sailcloth and should 
soon be flying into the sea. Was it possible that 
such a thing might happen to anyone? 

The priest strewed earth upon Gusev and bowed 
down. They sang “ Eternal Memory.” 

The man on watch duty tilted up the end of the 
plank, Gusev slid off and flew head foremost, turned 
a somersault in the air and splashed into the sea. 
He was covered with foam and for a moment looked 
as though he were wrapped in lace, but the minute 
passed and he disappeared in the waves. 

He went rapidly towards the bottom. Did he 
reach it? It was said to be three miles to the bot- 
tom. After sinking sixty or seventy feet, he began 
moving more and more slowly, swaying rhythmically, 
as though he were hesitating and, carried along by 
the current, moved more rapidly sideways than 
downwards. 

Then he was met by a shoal of the fish called har- 
bour pilots. Seeing the dark body the fish stopped 
as though petrified, and suddenly turned round and 
disappeared. In less than a minute they flew back 
swift as an arrow to Gusev, and began zig-zagging 
round him in the water. 

After that another dark body appeared. It was 
a shark. It swam under Gusev with dignity and 


Gusev 


165 

no show of interest, as though it did not notice him, 
and sank down upon its back, then it turned belly 
upwards, basking in the warm, transparent water 
and languidly opened its jaws with two rows of teeth. 
The harbour pilots are delighted, they stop to see 
what will come next. After playing a little with 
the body the shark nonchalantly puts its jaws under 
it, cautiously touches it with its teeth, and the sail- 
cloth is rent its full length from head to foot; one 
of the weights falls out and frightens the harbour 
pilots, and striking the shark on the ribs goes rapidly 
to the bottom. 

Overhead at this time the clouds are massed to- 
gether on the side where the sun is setting; one cloud 
like a triumphal arch, another like a lion, a third like 
a pair of scissors. . . . From behind the clouds a 
broad, green shaft of light pierces through and 
stretches to the middle of the sky; a little later an- 
other, violet-coloured, lies beside it; next that, one of 
gold, then one rose-coloured. . . . The sky turns a 
soft lilac. Looking at this gorgeous, enchanted sky, 
at first the ocean scowls, but soon it, too, takes ten- 
der, joyous, passionate colours for which it is hard to 
find a name in human speech. 





















































♦ 



























































































































THE STUDENT 


THE STUDENT 


At first the weather was fine and still. The 
thrushes were calling, and in the swamps close by 
something alive droned pitifully with a sound like 
blowing into an empty bottle. A snipe flew by, and 
the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay, resounding 
note in the spring air. But when it began to get 
dark in the forest a cold, penetrating wind blew inap- 
propriately from the east, and everything sank into 
silence. Needles of ice stretched across the pools, 
and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. 
There was a whiff of winter. 

Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of a sacristan, and a 
student of the clerical academy, returning home from 
shooting, walked all the time by the path in the 
water-side meadow. His fingers were numb and his 
face was burning with the wind. It seemed to him 
that the cold that had suddenly come on had de- 
stroyed the order and harmony of things, that nature 
itself felt ill at ease, and that was why the evening 
darkness was falling more rapidly than usual. All 
around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy. The 
only light was one gleaming in the widows’ gardens 
near the river; the village, over three miles away, 
and everything in the distance all round was plunged 
in the cold evening mist. The student remembered 
that, as he went out from the house, his mother was 
169 


The Tales of Chekhov 


170 

sitting barefoot on the floor in the entry, cleaning 
the samovar, while his father lay on the stove cough- 
ing; as it was Good Friday nothing had been cooked, 
and the student was terribly hungry. And now, 
shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a 
wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time 
of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time 
there had been just the same desperate poverty and 
hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, 
ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the 
same darkness, the same feeling of oppression — all 
these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the 
lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. 
And he did not want to go home. 

The gardens were called the widows’ because they 
were kept by two widows, mother and daughter. A 
camp fire was burning brightly with a crackling 
sound, throwing out light far around on the ploughed 
earth. The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fat old woman 
in a man’s coat, was standing by and looking thought- 
fully into the fire; her daughter Lukerya, a little 
pock-marked woman with a stupid-looking face, was 
sitting on the ground, washing a caldron and spoons. 
Apparently they had just had supper. There was 
a sound of men’s voices; it was the labourers water- 
ing their horses at the river. 

“ Here you have winter back again,” said the stu- 
dent, going up to the camp fire. “ Good evening.” 

Vasilisa started, but at once recognized him and 
smiled cordially. 

“ I did not know you ; God bless you,” she said. 
“ You’ll be rich.” 


The Student 


171 

They talked. Vasilisa, a woman of experience, 
who had been in service with the gentry, first as a 
wet-nurse, afterwards as a children’s nurse, expressed 
herself with refinement, and a soft, sedate smile 
never left her face; her daughter Lukerya, a village 
peasant woman, who had been crushed by her hus- 
band, simply screwed up her eyes at the student and 
said nothing, and she had a strange expression like 
that of a deaf mute. 

“ At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed 
himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands 
to the fire, “ so it must have been cold then, too. 
Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! 
An utterly dismal long night! ” 

He looked round at the darkness, shook his head 
abruptly and asked : 

“ No doubt you have been at the reading of the 
Twelve Gospels? ” 

“ Yes, I have,” answered Vasilisa. 

“ If you remember at the Last Supper Peter said 
to Jesus, ‘ I am ready to go with Thee into darkness 
and unto death.’ And our Lord answered him thus ; 
4 1 say unto thee, Peter, before the cock croweth thou 
wilt have denied Me thrice.’ After the supper Jesus 
went through the agony of death in the garden and 
prayed, and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint, 
his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle 
against sleep. He fell asleep. Then you heard 
how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed 
Him to His tormentors. They took Him bound to 
the high priest and beat Him, while Peter, exhausted, 
worn out with misery and alarm, hardly awake, yow 


The Tales of Chekhov 


172 

know, feeling that something awful was just going 
to happen on earth, followed behind. . . . He 
loved Jesus passionately, intensely, and now he saw 
from far off how He was beaten. . . .” 

Lukerya left the spoons and fixed an immovable 
stare upon the student. 

“They came to the high priest’s,” he went on; 
“ they began to question Jesus, and meantime the 
labourers made a fire in the yard as it was cold, and 
warmed themselves. Peter, too, stood with them 
near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing. A 
woman, seeing him, said: ‘He was with Jesus, 
too ’ — that is as much as to say that he, too, should 
be taken to be questioned. And all the labourers 
that were standing near the fire must have looked 
sourly and suspiciously at him, because he was con- 
fused and said: ‘I don’t know Him.’ A little 
while after again someone recognized him as one of 
Jesus’ disciples and said: ‘Thou, too, art one of 
them,’ but again he denied it. And for the third 
time someone turned to him : ‘ Why, did I not see 

thee with Him in the garden to-day?’ For the 
third time he denied it. And immediately after that 
time the cock crowed, and Peter, looking from afar 
off at Jesus, remembered the words He had said to 
him in the evening. . . . He remembered, he came 
to himself, went out of the yard and wept bitterly — 
bitterly. In the Gospel it is written: ‘He went 
out and wept bitterly.’ I imagine it: the still, still, 
dark, dark garden, and in the stillness, faintly audi- 
ble, smothered sobbing. . . .” 

The student sighed and sank into thought. Still 


The Student 


173 

smiling, Vasilisa suddenly gave a gulp, big tears 
flowed freely down her cheeks, and she screened her 
face from the fire with her sleeve as though ashamed 
of her tears, and Lukerya, staring immovably at the 
student, flushed crimson, and her expression became 
strained and heavy like that of someone enduring 
intense pain. 

The labourers came back from the river, and one 
of them riding a horse was quite near, and the light 
from the fire quivered upon him. The student said 
good-night to the widows and went on. And again 
the darkness was about him and his fingers began to 
be numb. A cruel wind was blowing, winter really 
had come back and it did not feel as though Easter 
would be the day after to-morrow. 

Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa : since 
she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter 
the night before the Crucifixion must have some rela- 
tion to her. . . . 

He looked round. The solitary light was still 
gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be 
seen near it now. The student thought again that if 
Vasilisa had shed tears, and her daughter had been 
troubled, it was evident that what he had just been 
telling them about, which had happened nineteen cen- 
turies ago, had a relation to the present — to both 
women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all peo- 
ple. The old woman had wept, not because he could 
tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was near 
to her, because her whole being was interested in 
what was passing in Peter’s soul. 

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even 


174 The Tales of Chekhov 

stopped for a minute to take breath. “ The past,” 
he thought, “ is linked with the present by an un- 
broken chain of events flowing one out of another.” 
And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends 
of that chain; that when he touched one end the 
other quivered. 

When he crossed the river by the ferry boat and 
afterwards, mounting the hill, looked at his village 
and towards the west where the cold purple sunset 
lay a narrow streak of light, he thought that truth 
and beauty which had guided human life there in the 
garden and in the yard of the high priest had contin- 
ued without interruption to this day, and had evi- 
dently always been the chief thing in human life and 
in all earthly life, indeed; and the feeling of youth, 
health, vigour — he was only twenty-two — and the 
inexpressible sw r eet expectation of happiness, of un- 
known mysterious happiness, took possession of him 
little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, 
marvellous, and full of lofty meaning. 


IN THE RAVINE 


IN THE RAVINE 


I 

The village of Ukleevo lay in a ravine so that only 
the belfry and the chimneys of the printed cottons 
factories could be seen from the high road and the 
railway-station. When visitors asked what village 
this was, they were told: 

“ That’s the village where the deacon ate all the 
caviare at the funeral.” 

It had happened at the dinner at the funeral of 
Kostukov that the old deacon saw among the sav- 
ouries some large-grained caviare and began eating 
it greedily; people nudged him, tugged at his arm, 
but he seemed petrified with enjoyment: felt nothing, 
and only went on eating. He ate up all the caviare, 
and there were four pounds in the jar. And years 
had passed since then, the deacon had long been 
dead, but the caviare was still remembered. 
Whether life was so poor here or people had not 
been clever enough to notice anything but that unim- 
portant incident that had occurred ten years before, 
anyway the people had nothing else to tell about the 
village Ukleevo. 

The village was never free from fever, and there 
was boggy mud there even in the summer, especially 
under the fences over which hung old willow-trees 
177 


178 The Tales of Chekhov 

that gave deep shade. Here there was always a 
smell from the factory refuse and the acetic acid 
which was used in the finishing of the cotton print. 

The three cotton factories and the tanyard were 
not in the village itself, but a little way off. They 
were small factories, and not more than four hun- 
dred workmen were employed in all of them. The 
tanyard often made the water in the little river stink; 
the refuse contaminated the meadows, the peasants’ 
cattle suffered from Siberian plague, and orders were 
given that the factory should be closed. It was con- 
sidered to be closed, but went on working in secret 
with the connivance of the local police officer and the 
district doctor, who was paid ten roubles a month by 
the owner. In the whole village there were only 
two decent houses built of brick with iron roofs; one 
of them was the local court, in the other, a two- 
storied house just opposite the church, there lived a 
shopkeeper from Epifan called Grigory Petrovitch 
Tsybukin. 

Grigory kept a grocer’s shop, but that was only 
for appearance’ sake: in reality he sold vodka, cat- 
tle, hides, grain, and pigs; he traded in anything that 
came to hand, and when, for instance, magpies were 
wanted abroad for ladies’ hats, he made some thirty 
kopecks on every pair of birds; he bought timber for 
felling, lent money at interest, and altogether was a 
sharp old man, full of resources. 

He had two sons. The elder, Anisim, was in the 
police in the detective department and was rarely 
at home. The younger, Stepan, had gone in for 
trade and helped his father: but no great help was 


In the Ravine 


179 

expected from him as he was weak in health and 
deaf; his wife Aksinya, a handsome woman with a 
good figure, who wore a hat and carried a parasol on 
holidays, got up early and went to bed late, and ran 
about all day long, picking up her skirts and jingling 
her keys, going from the granary to the cellar and 
from there to the shop, and old Tsybukin looked at 
her good-humouredly while his eyes glowed, and at 
such moments he regretted she had not been married 
to his elder son instead of to the younger one, who 
was deaf, and who evidently knew very little about 
female beauty. 

The old man had always an inclination for family 
life, and he loved his family more than anything on 
earth, especially his elder son, the detective, and his 
daughter-in-law. Aksinya had no sooner married 
the deaf son than she began to display an extraor- 
dinary gift for business, and knew who could be 
allowed to run up a bill and who could not: she kept 
the keys and would not trust them even to her hus- 
band; she kept the accounts by means of the reckon- 
ing beads, looked at the horses’ teeth like a peasant, 
and was always laughing or shouting; and whatever 
she did or said the old man was simply delighted 
and muttered : 

“Well done, daughter-in-law! You are a smart 
wench! ” 

He was a widower, but a year after his son’s 
marriage he could not resist getting married him- 
self. A girl was found for him, living twenty miles 
from Ukleevo, called Varvara Nikolaevna, no 
longer quite young, but good-looking, comely, and 


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belonging to a decent family. As soon as she was 
installed into the upper-storey room everything in 
the house seemed to brighten up as though new glass 
had been put into all the windows. The lamps 
gleamed before the ikons, the tables were covered 
with snow-white cloths, flowers with red buds made 
their appearance in the windows and in the front 
garden, and at dinner, instead of eating from a single 
bowl, each person had a separate plate set for him. 
Varvara Nikolaevna had a pleasant, friendly smile, 
and it seemed as though the whole house were smil- 
ing, too. Beggars and pilgrims, male and female, 
began to come into the yard, a thing which had 
never happened in the past; the plaintive sing-song 
voices of the Ukleevo peasant women and the apolo- 
getic coughs of weak, seedy-looking men, who had 
been dismissed from the factory for drunkenness 
were heard under the windows. Varvara helped 
them with money, with bread, with old clothes, and 
afterwards, when she felt more at home, began 
taking things out of the shop. One day the deaf 
man saw her take four ounces of tea and that dis- 
turbed him. 

“ Here, mother’s taken four ounces of tea,” he 
informed his father afterwards; “where is that to 
be entered? ” 

The old man made no reply but stood still and 
thought a moment, moving his eyebrows, and then 
went upstairs to his wife. 

“ Varvarushka, if you want anything out of the 
shop,” he said affectionately, “ take it, my dear. 
Take it and welcome; don’t hesitate.” 


In the Ravine 181 

And the next day the deaf man, running across 
the yard, called to her: 

“ If there is anything you want, mother, take it.” 

There was something new, something gay and 
light-hearted in her giving of alms, just as there was 
in the lamps before the ikons and in the red flowers. 
When at Carnival or at the church festival, which 
lasted for three days, they sold the peasants tainted 
salt meat, smelling so strong it was hard to stand 
near the tub of it, and took scythes, caps, and their 
wives’ kerchiefs in pledge from the drunken men; 
when the factory hands stupefied with bad vodka lay 
rolling in the mud, and sin seemed to hover thick 
like a fog in the air, then it was a relief to think that 
up there in the house there was a gentle, neatly 
dressed woman who had nothing to do with salt 
meat or vodka; her charity had in those burden- 
some, murky days the effect of a safety valve in a 
machine. 

The days in Tsybukin’s house were spent in busi- 
ness cares. Before the sun had risen in the morning 
Aksinya was panting and puffing as she washed in 
the outer room, and the samovar was boiling in the 
kitchen with a hum that boded no good. Old Grig- 
ory Petrovitch, dressed in a long black coat, cotton 
breeches and shiny top boots, looking a dapper little 
figure, walked about the rooms, tapping with his 
little heels like the father-in-law in a well-known 
song. The shop was opened. When it was day- 
light a racing droshky was brought up to the front 
door and the old man got jauntily on to it, pulling 
his big cap down to his ears; and, looking at him, 


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The Tales of Chekhov 


no one would have said he. was fifty-six. His wife 
and daughter-in-law saw him off, and at such times 
when he had on a good, clean coat, and had in the 
droshky a huge black horse that had cost three hun- 
dred roubles, the old man did not like the peasants to 
come up to him with their complaints and petitions; 
he hated the peasants and disdained them, and if he 
saw some peasants waiting at the gate, he would 
shout angrily : 

“ Why are you standing there? Go further off.” 

Or if it were a beggar, he would say : 

“ God will provide ! ” 

He used to drive off on business; his wife, in a 
dark dress and a black apron, tidied the rooms or 
helped in the kitchen. Aksinya attended to the 
shop, and from the yard could be heard the clink of 
bottles and of money, her laughter and loud talk, 
and the anger of customers whom she had offended; 
and at the same time it could be seen that the secret 
sale of vodka was already going on in the shop. 
The deaf man sat in the shop, too, or walked about 
the street bare-headed, with his hands in his pockets 
looking absent-mindedly now at the huts, now at the 
sky overhead. Six times a day they had tea; four 
times a day they sat down to meals; and in the eve- 
ning they counted over their takings, put them down, 
went to bed, and slept soundly. 

All the three cotton factories in Ukleevo and the 
houses of the factory owners — Hrymin Seniors, 
Hrymin Juniors, and Kostukov — were on a tele- 
phone. The telephone was laid on in the local 
court, too, but it soon ceased to work as bugs and 


In the Ravine 


183 

beetles bred there. The elder of the rural district 
had had little education and wrote every word in the 
official documents in capitals. But when the tele- 
phone was spoiled he said: 

“ Yes, now we shall be badly off without a tele- 
phone.” 

The Hrymin Seniors were continually at law with 
the Juniors, and sometimes the Juniors quarrelled 
among themselves and began going to law, and their 
factory did not work for a month or two till they 
were reconciled again, and this was an entertain- 
ment for the people of Ukleevo, as there was a great 
deal of talk and gossip on the occasion of each quar- 
rel. On holidays Kostukov and the Juniors used to 
get up races, used to dash about Ukleevo and run 
over calves. Aksinya, rustling her starched petti- 
coats, used to promenade in a low-necked dress up 
and down the street near her shop; the Juniors used 
to snatch her up and carry her off as though by force. 
Then old Tsybukin would drive out to show his new 
horse and take Varvara with him. 

In the evening, after the races, when people were 
going to bed, an expensive concertina was played in 
the Juniors’ yard and, if it were a moonlight night, 
those sounds sent a thrill of delight to the heart, and 
Ukleevo no longer seemed a wretched hole. 

II 

The elder son Anisim came home very rarely, 
only on great holidays, but he often sent by a re- 
turning villager presents and letters written in very 


184 The Tales of Chekhov 

good writing by some other hand, always on a sheet 
of foolscap in the form of a petition. The letters 
were full of expressions that Anisim never made use 
of in conversation: “Dear papa and mamma, I 
send you a pound of flower tea for the satisfaction 
of your physical needs.” 

At the bottom of every letter was scratched, as 
though with a broken pen: “ Anisim Tsybukin,” and 
again in the same excellent hand: “ Agent.” 

The letters were read aloud several times, and 
the old father, touched, red with emotion, would say: 

“ Here he did not care to stay at home, he has 
gone in for an intellectual line. Well, let him! 
Every man to his own job ! ” 

It happened just before Carnival there was a 
heavy storm of rain mixed with hail; the old man 
and Varvara went to the window to look at it, and 
lo and behold ! Anisim drove up in a sledge from the 
station. He was quite unexpected. He came in- 
doors, looking anxious and troubled about some- 
thing, and he remained the same all the time; there 
was something free and easy in his manner. He 
was in no haste to go away, it seemed, as though he 
had been dismissed from the service. Varvara was 
pleased at his arrival; she looked at him with a sly 
expression, sighed, and shook her head. 

“How is this, my friends?” she said. “Tut, 
tut, the lad’s in his twenty-eighth year, and he is 
still leading a gay bachelor life; tut, tut, tut. . . .” 

From the other room her soft, even speech 
sounded like tut, tut, tut. She began whispering 
with her husband and Aksinya, and their faces wore 


In the Ravine 185 

the same sly and mysterious expression as though 
they were conspirators. 

It was decided to marry Anisim. 

u Oh, tut, tut . . . the younger brother has been 
married long ago,” said Varvara, “ and you are still 
without a helpmate like a cock at a fair. What is 
the meaning of it? Tut, tut, you will be married, 
please God, then as you choose — you will go into 
the service and your wife will remain here at home 
to help us. There is no order in your life, young 
man, and I see you have forgotten how to live prop- 
erly. Tut, tut, it’s the same trouble with all you 
townspeople.” 

When the Tsybukins married, the most handsome 
girls were chosen as brides for them as rich men. 
For Anisim, too, they found a handsome one. He 
was himself of an uninteresting and inconspicuous 
appearance; of a feeble, sickly build and short stat- 
ure; he had full, puffy cheeks which looked as though 
he were blowing them out; his eyes looked with a 
keen, unblinking stare ; his beard was red and scanty, 
and when he was thinking he always put it into his 
mouth and bit it; moreover he often drank too much, 
and that was noticeable from his face and his walk. 
But when he was informed that they had found a 
very beautiful bride for him, he said: 

“ Oh well, I am not a fright myself. All of us 
Tsybukins are handsome, I may say.” 

The village of Torguevo was near the town. 
Half of it had lately been incorporated into the 
town, the other half remained a village. In the 
first — the town half — there was a widow living in 


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her own little house; she had a sister living with her 
who was quite poor and went out to work by the day, 
and this sister had a daughter called Lipa, a girl who 
went out to work, too. People in Torguevo were 
already talking about Lipa’s good looks, but her ter- 
rible poverty put everyone off; people opined that 
some widower or elderly man would marry her re- 
gardless of her poverty, or would perhaps take her 
to himself without marriage, and that her mother 
would get enough to eat living with her. Varvara 
heard about Lipa from the matchmakers, and she 
drove over to Torguevo. 

Then a visit of inspection was arranged at the 
aunt’s, with lunch and wine all in due order, and 
Lipa wore a new pink dress made on purpose for 
this occasion, and a crimson ribbon like a flame 
gleamed in her hair. She was pale-faced, thin, and 
frail, with soft, delicate features sunburnt from 
working in the open air; a shy, mournful smile al- 
ways hovered about her face, and there was a child- 
like look in her eyes, trustful and curious. 

She was young, quite a little girl, her bosom still 
scarcely perceptible, but she could be married because 
she had reached the legal age. She really was beau- 
tiful, and the only thing that might be thought unat- 
tractive was her big masculine hands which hung idle 
now like two big claws. 

“ There is no dowry — and we don’t think much 
of that,” said Tsybukin to the aunt. “We took a 
wife from a poor family for our son Stepan, too, and 
now we can’t say too much for her. In house and 
in business alike she has hands of gold.” 


In the Ravine 


is? 

Lipa stood in the doorway and looked as though 
she would say: “ Do with me as you will, I trust 
you,” while her mother Praskovya the work-woman 
hid herself in the kitchen numb with shyness. At 
one time in her youth a merchant whose floors she 
was scrubbing stamped at her in a rage; she went 
chill with terror and there always was a feeling of 
fear at the bottom of her heart. When she was 
frightened her arms and legs trembled and her 
cheeks twitched. Sitting in the kitchen she tried to 
hear what the visitors were saying, and she kept 
crossing herself, pressing her fingers to her forehead, 
and gazing at the ikons. Anisim, slightly drunk, 
opened the door into the kitchen and said in a free- 
and-easy way: 

“ Why are you sitting in here, precious mamma? 
We are dull without you.” 

And Praskovya, overcome with timidity, pressing 
her hands to her lean, wasted bosom, said: 

“ Oh, not at all. . . . IPs very kind of you.” 

After the visit of inspection the wedding day was 
fixed. Then Anisim walked about the rooms at 
home whistling, or suddenly thinking of something, 
would fall to brooding and would look at the floor 
fixedly, silently, as though he would probe to the 
depths of the earth. He expressed neither pleasure 
that he was to be married, married so soon, on Low 
Sunday, nor a desire to see his bride, but simply went 
on whistling. And it was evident he was only get- 
ting married because his father and stepmother 
wished him to, and because it was the custom in the 
village to marry the son in order to have a woman 


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to help in the house. When he went away he 
seemed in no haste, and behaved altogether not as 
he had done on previous visits — was particularly 
free and easy, and talked inappropriately. 

Ill 

In the village Shikalovo lived two dressmakers, 
sisters, belonging to the Flagellant sect. The new 
clothes for the wedding were ordered from them, 
and they often came to try them on, and stayed a 
long while drinking tea. They were making Var- 
vara a brown dress with black lace and bugles on it, 
and Aksinya a light green dress with a yellow front, 
with a train. When the dressmakers had finished 
their work Tsybukin paid them not in money but in 
goods from the shop, and they went away depressed, 
carrying parcels of tallow candles and tins of sar- 
dines which they did not in the least need, and when 
they got out of the village into the open country 
they sat down on a hillock and cried. 

Anisim arrived three days before the wedding, 
rigged out in new clothes from top to toe. He had 
dazzling india-rubber goloshes, and instead of a 
cravat wore a red cord with little balls on it, and 
over his shoulder he had hung an overcoat, also new, 
without putting his arms into the sleeves. 

After crossing himself sedately before the ikon, 
he greeted his father and gave him ten silver roubles 
and ten half-roubles; to Varvara he gave as much, 
and to Aksinya twenty quarter-roubles. The chief 
charm of the present lay in the fact that all the 


In the Ravine 


189 

coins, as though carefully matched, were new and 
glittered in the sun. Trying to seem grave and 
sedate he pursed up his face and puffed out his 
cheeks, and he smelt of spirits. Probably he had 
visited the refreshment bar at every station. And 
again there was a free-and-easiness about the man — 
something superfluous and out of place. Then Ani- 
sim had lunch and drank tea with the old man, and 
Varvara turned the new coins over in her hand and 
inquired about villagers who had gone to live in the 
town. 

“ They are all right, thank God, they get on quite 
well,” said Anisim. “ Only something has happened 
to Ivan Yegorov: his old wife Sofya Nikiforovna is 
dead. From consumption. They ordered the me- 
morial dinner for the peace of her soul at the con- 
fectioner’s at two and a half roubles a head. And 
there was real wine. Those who were peasants 
from our village — they paid two and a half roubles 
for them, too. They ate nothing, as though a peas- 
ant would understand sauce ! ” 

“ Two and a half,” said his father, shaking his 
head. 

“ Well, it’s not like the country there, you go into 
a restaurant to have a snack of something, you ask 
for one thing and another, others join till there is a 
party of us, one has a drink — and before you know 
where you are it is daylight and you’ve three or four 
roubles each to pay. And when one is with Samo- 
rodov he likes to have coffee with brandy in it after 
everything, and brandy is sixty kopecks for a little 
glass.” 


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“ And he is making it all up,” said the old man 
enthusiastically; “ he is making it all up, lying! ” 

“ I am always with Samorodov now. It is Samo- 
rodov who writes my letters to you. He writes 
splendidly. And if I were to tell you, mamma,” 
Anisim went on gaily, addressing Varvara, “ the 
sort of fellow that Samorodov is, you would not 
believe me. We call him Muhtar, because he is 
black like an Armenian. I can see through him, I 
know all his affairs like the five fingers of my hand, 
and he feels that, and he always follows me about, 
we are regular inseparables. He seems not to like 
it in a way, but he can’t get on without me. Where 
I go he goes. I have a correct, trustworthy eye, 
mamma. One sees a peasant selling a shirt in the 
market place. ‘ Stay, that shirt’s stolen.’ And 
really it turns out it is so : the shirt was a stolen one.” 

“ What do you tell from? ” asked Varvara. 

“ Not from anything, I have just an eye for it. 
I know nothing about the shirt, only for some reason 
I seem drawn to it: it’s stolen, and that’s all I can 
say. Among us detectives it’s come to their saying, 
* Oh, Anisim has gone to shoot snipe ! ’ That 
means looking for stolen goods. Yes. . . . Any- 
body can steal, but it is another thing to keep ! The 
earth is wide, but there is nowhere to hide stolen 
goods.” 

“ In our village a ram and two ewes were carried 
off last week,” said Varvara, and she heaved a sigh, 
“ and there is no one to try and find them. . . . 
Oh, tut, tut. . . .” 

“ Well, I might have a try. I don’t mind.” 


In the Ravine 


191 

The day of the wedding arrived. It was a cool 
but bright, cheerful April day. People were driv- 
ing about Ukleevo from early morning with pairs or 
teams of three horses decked with many-coloured 
ribbons on their yokes and manes, with a jingle of 
bells. The rooks, disturbed by this activity, were 
cawing noisily in the willows, and the starlings sang 
their loudest unceasingly as though rejoicing that 
there was a wedding at the Tsybukins’. 

Indoors the tables were already covered with long 
fish, smoked hams, stuffed fowls, boxes of sprats, 
pickled savouries of various sorts, and a number of 
bottles of vodka and wine; there was a smell of 
smoked sausage and of sour tinned lobster. Old 
Tsybukin walked about near the tables, tapping with 
his heels and sharpening the knives against each 
other. They kept calling Varvara and asking for 
things, and she was constantly with a distracted face 
running breathlessly into the kitchen, where the man 
cook from Kostukov’s and the woman cook from 
Hrymin Juniors’ had been at work since early morn- 
ing. Aksinya, with her hair curled, in her stays 
without her dress on, in new creaky boots, flew about 
the yard like a whirlwind showing glimpses of her 
bare knees and bosom. 

It was noisy, there was a sound of scolding and 
oaths; passers-by stopped at the wide-open gates, 
and in everything there was a feeling that something 
extraordinary was happening. 

“ They have gone for the bride ! ” 

The bells began jingling and died away far beyond 
the village. . . . Between two and three o’clock 


192 The Tales of Chekhov 

people ran up: again there was a jingling of bells: 
they were bringing the bride ! The church was full, 
the candelabra were lighted, the choir were singing 
from music books as old Tsybukin had wished it. 
The glare of the lights and the bright coloured 
dresses dazzled Lipa; she felt as though the singers 
with their loud voices were hitting her on the head 
with a hammer. Her boots and the stays, which 
she had put on for the first time in her life, pinched 
her, and her face looked as though she had only just 
come to herself after fainting; she gazed about with- 
out understanding. Anisim, in his black coat with 
a red cord instead of a tie, stared at the same spot 
lost in thought, and when the singers shouted loudly 
he hurriedly crossed himself. He felt touched and 
disposed to weep. This church was familiar to him 
from earliest childhood; at one time his dead mother 
used to bring him here to take the sacrament; at one 
time he used to sing in the choir; every ikon he re- 
membered so well, every corner. Here he was 
being married, he had to take a wife for the sake of 
doing the proper thing, but he was not thinking of 
that now, he had forgotten his wedding completely. 
Tears dimmed his eyes so that he could not see the 
ikons, he felt heavy at heart; he prayed and besought 
God that the misfortunes that threatened him, that 
were ready to burst upon him to-morrow, if not to- 
day, might somehow pass him by as storm-clouds in 
time of drought pass over the village without yield- 
ing one drop of rain. And so many sins were 
heaped up in the past, so many sins, all getting away 


In the Ravine 


193 

from them or setting them right was so beyond hope 
that it seemed incongruous even to ask forgiveness. 
But he did ask forgiveness, and even gave a loud sob, 
but no one took any notice of that, since they all 
supposed he had had a drop too much. 

There was a sound of a fretful childish wail: 

“ Take me away, mamma darling! ” 

“ Quiet there ! ” cried the priest. 

When they returned from the church people ran 
after them; there were crowds, too, round the shop, 
round the gates, and in the yard under the windows. 
The peasant women came in to sing songs of con- 
gratulation to them. The young couple had scarcely 
crossed the threshold when the singers, who were al- 
ready standing in the outer room with their music 
books, broke into a loud chant at the top of their 
voices; a band ordered expressly from the town 
began playing. Foaming Don wine was brought in 
tall wine-glasses, and Elizarov, a carpenter who did 
jobs by contract, a tall, gaunt old man with eyebrows 
so bushy that his eyes could scarcely be seen, said, 
addressing the happy pair: 

“ Anisim and you, my child, love one another, 
live in God’s way, little children, and the Heavenly 
Mother will not abandon you.” 

He leaned his face on the old father’s shoulder 
and gave a sob. 

“ Grigory Petrovitch, let us weep, let us weep with 
joy ! ” he said in a thin voice, and then at once burst 
out laughing in a loud bass guffaw. “Ho-ho-ho! 
This is a fine daughter-in-law for you too ! Every- 


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The Tales of Chekhov 


thing is in its place in her; all runs smoothly, no 
creaking, the mechanism works well, lots of screws 
in it.” 

He was a native of the Yegoryevsky district, but 
had worked in the factories in Ukleevo and the 
neighborhood from his youth up, and had made it 
his home. He had been a familiar figure for years 
as old and gaunt and lanky as now, and for years he 
had been nicknamed “ Crutch.” Perhaps because 
he had been for forty years occupied in repairing the 
factory machinery he judged everybody and every- 
thing by its soundness or its need of repair. And 
before sitting down to the table he tried several 
chairs to see whether they were solid, and he touched 
the smoked fish also. 

After the Don wine, they all sat down to the table. 
The visitors talked, moving their chairs. The sing- 
ers were singing in the outer room. The band was 
playing, and at the same time the peasant women in 
the yard were singing their songs all in chorus — 
and there was an awful, wild medley of sounds which 
made one giddy. 

Crutch turned round in his chair and prodded his 
neighbours with his elbows, prevented people from 
talking, and laughed and cried alternately. 

“ Little children, little children, little children,” 
he muttered rapidly. “ Aksinya my dear, Varvara 
darling, we will live all in peace and harmony, my 
dear little axes. . . .” 

He drank little and was now only drunk from one 
glass of English bitters. The revolting bitters, 
made from nobody knows what, intoxicated every- 


In the Ravine 


195 

one who drank it as though it had stunned them. 
Their tongues began to falter. 

The local clergy, the clerks from the factories 
with their wives, the tradesmen and tavern-keepers 
from the other villages were present. The clerk and 
the elder of the rural district who had served to- 
gether for fourteen years, and who had during all 
that time never signed a single document for any- 
body nor let a single person out of the local court 
without deceiving or insulting him, were sitting now 
side by side, both fat and well-fed, and it seemed as 
though they were so saturated in injustice and false- 
hood that even the skin of their faces was somehow 
peculiar, fraudulent. The clerk’s wife, a thin 
woman with a squint, had brought all her children 
with her, and like a bird of prey looked aslant at 
the plates and snatched anything she could get hold 
of to put in her own or her children’s pockets. 

Lipa sat as though turned to stone, still with the 
same expression as in church. Anisim had not said 
a single word to her since he had made her acquaint- 
ance, so that he did not yet know the sound of her 
voice; and now, sitting beside her, he remained mute 
and went on drinking bitters, and when he got 
drunk he began talking to the aunt who was sitting 
opposite : 

“ I have a friend called Samorodov. A peculiar 
man. He is by rank an honorary citizen, and he 
can talk. But I know him through and through, 
auntie, and he feels it. Pray join me in drinking to 
the health of Samorodov, auntie ! ” 

Varvara, worn out and distracted, walked round 


196 The Tales of Chekhov 

the table pressing the guests to eat, and was evidently 
pleased that there were so many dishes and that 
everything was so lavish — no one could disparage 
them now. The sun set, but the dinner went on: 
the guests were beyond knowing what they were 
eating or drinking, it was impossible to distinguish 
what was said, and only from time to time when the 
band subsided some peasant woman could be heard 
shouting: 

“ They have sucked the blood out of us, the 
Herods; a pest on them ! ” 

In the evening they danced to the band. The 
Hrymin Juniors came, bringing their wine, and one 
of them, when dancing a quadrille, held a bottle in 
each hand and a wineglass in his mouth, and that 
made everyone laugh. In the middle of the quad- 
rille they suddenly crooked their knees and danced 
in a squatting position; Aksinya in green flew by like 
a flash, stirring up a wind with her train. Someone 
trod on her flounce and Crutch shouted: 

“ Aie, they have torn off the panel! Children! ” 

Aksinya had naive grey eyes which rarely blinked, 
and a naive smile played continually on her face. 
And in those unblinking eyes, and in that little head 
on the long neck, and in her slenderness there was 
something snake-like ; all in green but for the yellow 
on her bosom, she looked with a smile on her face 
as a viper looks out of the young rye in the spring at 
the passers-by, stretching itself and lifting its head. 
The Hrymins were free in their behaviour to her, 
and it was very noticeable that she was on intimate 
terms with the elder of them. But her deaf husband 


In the Ravine 


197 

saw nothing, he did not look at her; he sat with his 
legs crossed and ate nuts, cracking them so loudly 
that it sounded like pistol shots. 

But, behold, old Tsybukin himself walked into the 
middle of the room and waved his handkerchief as 
a sign that he, too, wanted to dance the Russian 
dance, and all over the house and from the crowd in 
the yard rose a roar of approbation: 

u He’s going to dance ! He himself ! ” 

Varvara danced, but the old man only waved his 
handkerchief and kicked up his heels, but the people 
in the yard, propped against one another, peeping 
in at the windows, were in raptures, and for the 
moment forgave him everything — his wealth and 
the wrongs he had done them. 

“ Well done, Grigory Petrovitch! ” was heard in 
the crowd. “ That’s right, do your best! You can 
still play your part! Ha-ha!” 

It was kept up till late, till two o’clock in the 
morning. Anisim, staggering, went to take leave of 
the singers and bandsmen, and gave each of them a 
new half-rouble. His father, who was not stagger- 
ing but still seemed to be standing on one leg, saw his 
guests off, and said to each of them: 

“ The wedding has cost two thousand.” 

As the party was breaking up, someone took the 
Shikalovo innkeeper’s good coat instead of his own 
old one, and Anisim suddenly flew into a rage and 
began shouting: 

“ Stop, I’ll find it at once; I know who stole it, 
stop.” 

He ran out into the street and pursued someone. 


198 The Tales of Chekhov 

He was caught, brought back home and shoved, 
drunken, red with anger, and wet, into the room 
where the aunt was undressing Lipa, and was 
locked in. 


IV 

Five days had passed. Anisim, who was prepar- 
ing to go, went upstairs to say good-bye to Var- 
vara. All the lamps were burning before the ikons, 
there was a smell of incense, while she sat at the 
window knitting a stocking of red wool. 

“ You have not stayed with us long,” she said. 
“ You’ve been dull, I dare say. Oh, tut, tut. . . . 
We live comfortably; we have plenty of everything. 
We celebrated your wedding properly, in good style; 
your father says it came to two thousand. In fact 
we live like merchants, only it’s dreary. We treat 
the people very badly. My heart aches, my dear; 
how we treat them, my goodness! Whether we 
exchange a horse or buy something or hire a la- 
bourer — it’s cheating in everything. Cheating 
and cheating. The Lenten oil in the shop is 
bitter, rancid, the people have pitch that is better. 
But surely, tell me pray, couldn’t we sell good 
oil?” 

“ Every man to his job, mamma.” 

“ But you know we all have to die? Oy, oy, 
really you ought to talk to your father ... ! ” 

“ Why, you should talk to him yourself.” 

“ Well, well, I did put in my word, but he said 
just what you do : ‘ Every man to his own job.’ 


In the Ravine 


199 

Do you suppose in the next world they’ll consider 
what job you have been put to? God’s judgment is 
just.” 

“ Of course no one will consider,” said Anisim, 
and he heaved a sigh. “ There is no God, anyway, 
you know, mamma, so what considering can there 
be?” 

Varvara looked at him with surprise, burst out 
laughing, and clasped her hands. Perhaps because 
she was so genuinely surprised at his words and 
looked at him as though he were a queer person, he 
was confused. 

“ Perhaps there is a God, only there is no faith. 
When I was being married I was not myself. Just 
as you may take an egg from under a hen and there 
is a chicken chirping in it, so my conscience was be- 
ginning to chirp in me, and while I was being mar- 
ried I thought all the time there was a God ! But 
when I left the church it was nothing. And indeed, 
how can I tell whether there is a God or not? We 
are not taught right from childhood, and while the 
babe is still at his mother’s breast he is only taught 
‘ every man to his own job.’ Father does not be- 
lieve in God, either. You were saying that Gun- 
torev had some sheep stolen. ... I have found 
them; it was a peasant at Shikalovo stole them; he 
stole them, but father’s got the fleeces ... so that’s 
all his faith amounts to.” 

Anisim winked and wagged his head. 

“ The elder does not believe in God, either,” he 
went on. “ And the clerk and the deacon, too. 
And as for their going to church and keeping the 


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The Tales of Chekhov 


fasts, that is simply to prevent people talking ill of 
them, and in case it really may be true that there 
will be a Day of Judgment. Nowadays people say 
that the end of the world has come because people 
have grown weaker, do not honour their parents, 
and so on. All that is nonsense. My idea, mam- 
ma, is that all our trouble is because there is so little 
conscience in people. I see through things, mamma, 
and I understand. If a man has a stolen shirt I 
see it. A man sits in a tavern and you fancy he is 
drinking tea and no more, but to me the tea is neither 
here nor there; I see further, he has no conscience. 
You can go about the whole day and not meet one 
man with a conscience. And the whole reason is 
that they don’t know whether there is a God or not. 

. . . Well, good-bye, mamma, keep alive and well, 
don’t remember evil against me.” 

Anisim bowed down at Varvara’s feet. 

“ I thank you for everything, mamma,” he said. 
“You are a great gain to our family. You are a 
very ladylike woman, and I am very pleased with 
you.” 

Much moved, Anisim went out, but returned again 
and said: 

“ Samorodov has got me mixed up in something: 
I shall either make my fortune or come to grief. 
If anything happens, then you must comfort my 
father, mamma.” 

“ Oh, nonsense, don’t you worry, tut, tut, tut . . . 
God is merciful. And, Anisim, you should be affec- 
tionate to your wife, instead of giving each other 
sulky looks as you do; you might smile at least.” 


In the Ravine 


201 


“ Yes, she is rather a queer one,” said Anisim, 
and he gave a sigh. “ She does not understand any- 
thing, she never speaks. She is very young, let her 
grow up.” 

A tall, sleek white stallion was already standing 
at the front door, harnessed to the chaise. 

Old Tsybukin jumped in jauntily with a run and 
took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara, Aksinya, 
and his brother. On the steps Lipa, too, was stand- 
ing; she was standing motionless, looking away, and 
it seemed as though she had not come to see him off 
but just by chance for some unknown reason. Ani- 
sim went up to her and just touched her cheek with 
his lips. 

“ Good-bye,” he said. 

And without looking at him she gave a strange 
smile; her face began to quiver, and everyone for 
some reason felt sorry for her. Anisim, too, leaped 
into the chaise with a bound and put his arms jaunt- 
ily akimbo, for he considered himself a good-looking 
fellow. 

When they drove up out of the ravine Anisim kept 
looking back towards the village. It was a warm, 
bright day. The cattle were being driven out for 
the first time, and the peasant girls and women were 
walking by the herd in their holiday dresses. The 
dun-coloured bull bellowed, glad to be free, and 
pawed the ground with his forefeet. On all sides, 
above and below, the larks were singing. Anisim 
looked round at the elegant white church — it had 
only lately been whitewashed — and he thought how 
he had been praying in it five days before; he looked 


202 


The Tales of Chekhov 


round at the school with its green roof, at the little 
river in which he used once to bathe and catch fish, 
and there was a stir of joy in his heart, and he 
wished that walls might rise up from the ground 
and prevent him from going further, and that he 
might be left with nothing but the past. 

At the station they went to the refreshment room 
and drank a glass of sherry each. His father felt 
in his pocket for his purse to pay. 

“ I will stand treat,” said Anisim. The old man, 
touched and delighted, slapped him on the shoulder, 
and winked to the waiter as much as to say, “ See 
what a fine son I have got.” 

“You ought to stay at home in the business, 
Anisim,” he said; “ you would be worth any price to 
me ! I would shower gold on you from head to 
foot, my son.” 

“ It can’t be done, papa.” 

The sherry was sour and smelt of sealing-wax, but 
they had another glass. 

When old Tsybukin returned home from the sta- 
tion, for the first moment he did not recognize his 
younger daughter-in-law. As soon as her husband 
had driven out of the yard, Lipa was transformed 
and suddenly brightened up. Wearing a thread- 
bare old petticoat, with her feet bare and her sleeves 
tucked up to the shoulders, she was scrubbing 
the stairs in the entry and singing in a silvery little 
voice, and when she brought out a big tub of 
dirty water and looked up at the sun with her 
childlike smile it seemed as though she, too, were a 
lark. 


In the Ravine 


203 

An old labourer who was passing by the door 
shook his head and cleared his throat. 

“ Yes, indeed, your daughters-in-law, Grigory 
Petrovitch, are a blessing from God,” he said. 
u Not women, but treasures! ” 

V 

On Friday the 8th of July, Elizarov, nicknamed 
Crutch, and Lipa were returning from the village of 
Kazanskoe, where they had been to a service on the 
occasion of a church holiday in the honour of the 
Holy Mother of Kazan. A good distance after 
them walked Lipa’s mother Praskovya, who always 
fell behind, as she was ill and short of breath. It 
was drawing towards evening. 

“ A-a-a . . said Crutch, wondering as he lis- 
tened to Lipa. “A-a! . . . We-ell!” 

“ I am very fond of jam, Ilya Makaritch,” said 
Lipa. “ I sit down in my little corner and drink 
tea and eat jam. Or I drink it with Varvara Niko- 
laevna, and she tells some story full of feeling. 
We have a lot of jam — four jars. ‘ Have some, 
Lipa; eat as much as you like.’ ” 

“ A-a-a, four jars ! ” 

“ They live very well. We have white bread with 
our tea ; and meat, too, as much as one wants. They 
live very well, only I am frightened with them, Ilya 
Makaritch. Oh, oh, how frightened I am! ” 

“ Why are you frightened, child? ” asked Crutch, 
and he looked back to see how far Praskovya was 
behind. 


204 The Tales of Chekhov 

“To begin with, when the wedding had been cele- 
brated I was afraid of Anisim Grigoritch. Anisim 
Grigoritch did nothing, he didn’t ill-treat me, only 
when he comes near me a cold shiver runs all over 
me, through all my bones. And I did not sleep one 
night, I trembled all over and kept praying to God. 
And now I am afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makaritch. 
It’s not that she does anything, she is always laugh- 
ing, but sometimes she glances at the window, and 
her eyes are so fierce and there is a gleam of green 
in them — like the eyes of the sheep in the shed. 
The Hrymin Juniors are leading her astray : ‘ Your 

old man,’ they tell her, ‘ has a bit of land at Butyo- 
kino, a hundred and twenty acres,’ they say, ‘ and 
there is sand and water there, so you, Aksinya,’ they 
say, ‘ build a brickyard there and we will go shares 
in it.’ Bricks now are twenty roubles the thousand, 
it’s a profitable business. Yesterday at dinner Ak- 
sinya said to my father-in-law : ‘ I want to build a 

brickyard at Butyokino; I’m going into business on 
my own account.’ She laughed as she said it. And 
Grigory Petrovitch’s face darkened, one could see he 
did not like it. ‘ As long as I live,’ he said, 4 the 
family must not break up, we must go on altogether.’ 
She gave a look and gritted her teeth. . . . Frit- 
ters were served, she would not eat them.” 

“ A-a-a ! . . .” Crutch was surprised. 

“ And tell me, if you please, when does she 
sleep?” said Lipa. “She sleeps for half an hour, 
then jumps up and keeps walking and walking about 
to see whether the peasants have not set fire to some- 
thing, have not stolen something. ... Iam fright- 


In the Ravine 


205 

ened with her, Ilya Makaritch. And the Hrymin 
Juniors did not go to bed after the wedding, but 
drove to the town to go to law with each other; and 
folks do say it is all on account of Aksinya. Two 
of the brothers have promised to build her a brick- 
yard, but the third is offended, and the factory has 
been at a standstill for a month, and my uncle Pro- 
hor is without work and goes about from house to 
house getting crusts. ‘ Hadn’t you better go work- 
ing on the land or sawing up wood, meanwhile, 
uncle? ’ I tell him; ‘ why disgrace yourself? ’ ‘ I’ve 

got out of the way of it,’ he says; ‘ I don’t know 
how to do any sort of peasant’s work now, Li- 
pinka.’ ...” 

They stopped to rest and wait for Praskovya near 
a copse of young aspen-trees. Elizarov had long 
been a contractor in a small way, but he kept no 
horses, going on foot all over the district with noth- 
ing but a little bag in which there was bread and 
onions, and stalking along with big strides, swinging 
his arms. And it was difficult to walk with him. 

At the entrance to the copse stood a milestone. 
Elizarov touched it; read it. Praskovya reached 
them out of breath. Her wrinkled and always 
scared-looking face was beaming with happiness; 
she had been at church to-day like anyone else, then 
she had been to the fair and there had drunk pear 
cider. For her this was unusual, and it even seemed 
to her now that she had lived for her own pleasure 
that day for the first time in her life. After resting 
they all three walked on side by side. The sun had 
already set, and its beams filtered through the copse, 


206 The Tales of Chekhov 

casting a light on the trunks of the trees. There 
was a faint sound of voices ahead. The Ukleevo 
girls had long before pushed on ahead but had lin- 
gered in the copse, probably gathering mushrooms. 

“ Hey, wenches ! ” cried Elizarov. “ Hey, my 
beauties ! ” 

There was a sound of laughter in response. 

“Crutch is coming! Crutch! The old horse- 
radish.” 

And the echo laughed, too. And then the copse 
was left behind. The tops of the factory chimneys 
came into view. The cross on the belfry glittered: 
this was the village: “ the one at which the deacon 
ate all the caviare at the funeral.” Now they were 
almost home ; they only had to go down into the big 
ravine. Lipa and Praskovya, who had been walk- 
ing barefooted, sat down on the grass to put on their 
boots; Elizar sat down with them. If they looked 
down from above Ukleevo looked beautiful and 
peaceful with its willow-trees, its white church, and 
its little river, and the only blot on the picture was 
the roof of the factories, painted for the sake of 
cheapness a gloomy ashen grey. On the slope on 
the further side they could see the rye — some in 
stacks and sheaves here and there as though strewn 
about by the storm, and some freshly cut lying in 
swathes; the oats, too, were ripe and glistened now 
in the sun like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest-time. 
To-day was a holiday, to-morrow they would harvest 
the rye and carry the hay, and then Sunday a holiday 
again; every day there were mutterings of distant 
thunder. It was misty and looked like rain, and, 


In the Ravine 


207 

gazing now at the fields, everyone thought, God 
grant we get the harvest in in time; and everyone 
felt gay and joyful and anxious at heart. 

“ Mowers ask a high price nowadays,” said Pras- 
kovya. “ One rouble and forty kopecks a day.” 

People kept coming and coming from the fair at 
Kazanskoe: peasant women, factory workers in new 
caps, beggars, children. . . . Here a cart would 
drive by stirring up the dust and behind it would 
run an unsold horse, and it seemed glad it had not 
been sold; then a cow was led along by the horns, 
resisting stubbornly; then a cart again, and in it 
drunken peasants swinging their legs. An old 
woman led a little boy in a big cap and big boots; the 
boy was tired out with the heat and the heavy boots 
which prevented his bending his legs at the knees, 
but yet blew unceasingly with all his might at a tin 
trumpet. They had gone down the slope and turned 
into the street, but the trumpet could still be heard. 

“ Our factory owners don’t seem quite them- 
selves . . .” said Elizarov. “ There’s trouble. 
Kostukov is angry with me. ‘ Too many boards 
have gone on the cornices.’ ‘Too many? As 
many have gone on it as were needed, Vassily Dani- 
litch; I don’t eat them with my porridge.’ ‘How 
can you speak to me like that? ’ said he, ‘ you good- 
for-nothing blockhead! Don’t forget yourself! It 
was I made you a contractor.’ ‘ That’s nothing so 
wonderful,’ said I. ‘ Even before I was a con- 
tractor I used to have tea every day.’ ‘ You are a 
rascal . . .’ he said. I said nothing. ‘ We are 
rascals in this world,’ thought I, ‘ and you will be 


208 


The Tales of Chekhov 


rascals in the next. . . .’ Ha-ha-ha ! The next 
day he was softer. ‘ Don’t you bear malice against 
me for my words, Makaritch,’ he said. ‘ If I said 
too much,’ says he, ‘ what of it? I am a merchant 
of the first guild, your superior — you ought to hold 
your tongue.’ ‘ You,’ said I, ‘ are a merchant of the 
first guild and I am a carpenter, that’s correct. And 
Saint Joseph was a carpenter, too. Ours is a right- 
eous calling and pleasing to God, and if you are 
pleased to be my superior you are very welcome to 
it, Vassily Danilitch.’ And later on, after that con- 
versation I mean, I thought : ‘ Which was the supe- 

rior? A merchant of the first guild or a carpen- 
ter? ’ The carpenter must be, my child! ” 

Crutch thought a minute and added: 

“Yes, that’s how it is, child. He who works, 
he who is patient is the superior.” 

By now the sun had set and a thick mist as white 
as milk was rising over the river, in the church en- 
closure, and in the open spaces round the factories. 
Now when the darkness was coming on rapidly, when 
lights were twinkling below, and when it seemed as 
though the mists were hiding a fathomless abyss, 
Lipa and her mother who were born in poverty and 
prepared to live so till the end, giving up to others 
everything except their frightened, gentle souls, may 
have fancied for a minute perhaps that in the vast, 
mysterious world, among the endless series of lives, 
they, too, counted for something, and they, too, were 
superior to someone; they liked sitting here at the 
top, they smiled happily and forgot that they must 
go down below again all the same. 


In the Ravine 


209 

At last they went home again. The mowers were 
sitting on the ground at the gates near the shop. As 
a rule the Ukleevo peasants did not go to Tsybukin’s 
to work, and they had to hire strangers, and now in 
the darkness it seemed as though there were men 
sitting there with long black beards. The shop was 
open, and through the doorway they could see the 
deaf man playing draughts with a boy. The mow- 
ers were singing softly, scarcely audibly, or loudly 
demanding their wages for the previous day, but 
they were not paid for fear they should go away 
before to-morrow. Old Tsybukin, with his coat off, 
was sitting in his waistcoat with Aksinya under the 
birch-tree, drinking tea; a lamp was burning on the 
table. 

“ I say, grandfather,” a mower called from out- 
side the gates, as though taunting him, “ pay us half 
anyway! Hey, grandfather.” 

And at once there was the sound of laughter, and 
then again they sang hardly audibly. . . . Crutch, 
too, sat down to have some tea. 

“ We have been at the fair, you know,” he began 
telling them. “ We have had a walk, a very nice 
walk, my children, praise the Lord. But an unfor- 
tunate thing happened : Sashka the blacksmith bought 
some tobacco and gave the shopman half a rouble to 
be sure. And the half rouble was a false one ” — 
Crutch went on, and he meant to speak in a whisper, 
but he spoke in a smothered husky voice which was 
audible to everyone. “ The half-rouble turned out 
to be a bad one. He was asked where he got it. 
‘ Anisim Tsybukin gave it me/ he said. ‘ When I 


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The Tales of Chekhov 


went to his wedding/ he said. They called the 
police inspector, took the man away. . . . Look 
out, Grigory Petrovitch, that nothing comes of it, 
no talk. . . .” 

“ Gra-ndfather ! ” the same voice called taunt- 
ingly outside the gates. “ Gra-andfather ! ” 

A silence followed. 

“ Ah, little children, little children, little chil- 
dren . . .” Crutch muttered rapidly, and he got up. 
He was overcome with drowsiness. “ Well, thank 
you for the tea, for the sugar, little children. It is 
time to sleep. I am like a bit of rotten timber now- 
adays, my beams are crumbling under me. Ho-ho- 
ho ! I suppose it’s time I was dead.” 

And he gave a gulp. Old Tsybukin did not finish 
his tea but sat on a little, pondering; and his face 
looked as though he were listening to the footsteps 
of Crutch, who was far away down the street. 

“ Sashka the blacksmith told a lie, I expect,” said 
Aksinya, guessing his thoughts. 

He went into the house and came back a little 
later with a parcel; he opened it, and there was the 
gleam of roubles — perfectly new coins. He took 
one, tried it with his teeth, flung it on the tray; then 
flung down another. 

“ The roubles really are false . . .” he said, look- 
ing at Aksinya and seeming perplexed. “ These are 
those Anisim brought, his present. Take them, 
daughter,” he whispered, and thrust the parcel into 
her hands. “ Take them and throw them into the 
well . . . confound them! And mind there is no 


In the Ravine 


211 


talk about it. Harm might come of it. . . . Take 
away the samovar, put out the light.” 

Lipa and her mother sitting in the barn saw the 
lights go out one after the other; only overhead in 
Varvara’s room there were blue and red lamps 
gleaming, and a feeling of peace, content, and happy 
ignorance seemed to float down from there. Pras- 
kovya could never get used to her daughter’s being 
married to a rich man, and when she came she hud- 
dled timidly in the outer room with a deprecating 
smile on her face, and tea and sugar were sent out 
to her. And Lipa, too, could not get used to it 
either, and after her husband had gone away she 
did not sleep in her bed, but lay down anywhere to 
sleep, in the kitchen or the barn, and every day she 
scrubbed the floor or washed the clothes, and felt as 
though she were hired by the day. And now, on 
coming back from the service, they drank tea in the 
kitchen with the cook, then they went into the barn 
and lay down on the ground between the sledge and 
the wall. It was dark here and smelt of harness. 
The lights went out about the house, then they could 
hear the deaf man shutting up the shop, the mowers 
settling themselves about the yard to sleep. In the 
distance at the Hrymin Juniors’ they were playing 
on the expensive concertina. . . . Praskovya and 
Lipa began to go to sleep. 

And when they were awakened by somebody’s 
steps it was bright moonlight; at the entrance of the 
barn stood Aksinya with her bedding in her arms. 

“ Maybe it’s a bit cooler here,” she said; then she 


212 


The Tales of Chekhov 


came in and lay down almost in the doorway so that 
the moonlight fell full upon her. 

She did not sleep, but breathed heavily, tossing 
from side to side with the heat, throwing off almost 
all the bedclothes. And in the magic moonlight 
what a beautiful, what a proud animal she was! A 
little time passed, and then steps were heard again: 
the old father, white all over, appeared in the door- 
way. 

“ Aksinya,” he called, “ are you here? ” 

“ Well? ” she responded angrily. 

“ I told you just now to throw the money into the 
well, have you done so? ” 

“ What next, throwing property into the water ! 
I gave them to the mowers. . . 

“Oh my God!” cried the old man, dumb- 
founded and alarmed. “Oh my God! you wicked 
woman. . . .” 

He flung up his hands and went out, and he kept 
saying something as he went away. And a little 
later Aksinya sat up and sighed heavily with annoy- 
ance, then got up and, gathering up her bedclothes 
in her arms, went out. 

“ Why did you marry me into this family, 
mother?” said Lipa. 

“ One has to be married, daughter. It was not 
us who ordained it.” 

And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to 
take possession of them. But it seemed to them 
that someone was looking down from the height of 
the heavens, out of the blue from where the stars 
were seeing everything that was going on in Ukleevo, 


In the Ravine 


213 

watching over them. And however great was wick- 
edness, still the night was calm and beautiful, and 
still in God’s world there is and will be truth and 
justice as calm and beautiful, and everything on 
earth is only waiting to be made one with truth 
and justice, even as the moonlight is blended with 
the night. 

And both, huddling close to one another, fell 
asleep comforted. 


VI 

News had come long before that Anisim had been 
put in prison for coining and passing bad money. 
Months passed, more than half a year passed, the 
long winter was over, spring had begun, and every- 
one in the house and the village had grown used to 
the fact that Anisim was in prison. And when any- 
one passed by the house or the shop at night he 
would remember that Anisim was in prison; and 
when they rang at the churchyard for some reason, 
that, too, reminded them that he was in prison await- 
ing trial. 

It seemed as though a shadow had fallen upon the 
house. The house looked darker, the roof was 
rustier, the heavy, iron-bound door into the shop, 
which was painted green, was covered with cracks, 
or, as the deaf man expressed it, “ blisters and old 
Tsybukin seemed to have grown dingy, too. He 
had given up cutting his hair and beard, and looked 
shaggy. He no longer sprang jauntily into his 
chaise, nor shouted to beggars: “God will pro- 


The Tales of Chekhov 


214 

vide!” His strength was on the wane, and that 
was evident in everything. People were less afraid 
of him now, and the police officer drew up a formal 
charge against him in the shop though he received 
his regular bribe as before; and three times the old 
man was called up to the town to be tried for illicit 
dealing in spirits, and the case was continually ad- 
journed owing to the non-appearance of witnesses, 
and old Tsybukin was worn out with worry. 

He often went to see his son, hired somebody, 
handed in a petition to somebody else, presented a 
holy banner to some church. He presented the gov- 
ernor of the prison in which Anisim was confined 
with a silver glass stand with a long spoon and the 
inscription: “The soul knows its right measure.” 

“ There is no one to look after things for us,” 
said Varvara. “ Tut, tut. . . . You ought to ask 
someone of the gentlefolks, they would write to the 
head officials. ... At least they might let him out 
on bail ! Why wear the poor fellow out? ” 

She, too, was grieved, but had grown stouter and 
whiter; she lighted the lamps before the ikons as 
before, and saw that everything in the house was 
clean, and regaled the guests with jam and apple 
cheese. The deaf man and Aksinya looked after 
the shop. A new project was in progress — a brick- 
yard in Butyokino — and Aksinya went there almost 
every day in the chaise. She drove herself, and 
when she met acquaintances she stretched out her 
neck like a snake out of the young rye, and smiled 
naively and enigmatically. Lipa spent her time 
playing with the baby which had been born to her 


In the Ravine 


215 

before Lent. It was a tiny, thin, pitiful little baby, 
and it was strange that it should cry and gaze about 
and be considered a human being, and even be called 
Nikifor. He lay in his swinging cradle, and Lipa 
would walk away towards the door and say, bowing 
to him : 

“ Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch! ” 

And she would rush at him and kiss him. Then 
she would walk away to the door, bow again, and 
say: 

‘ Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch! ” 

And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying 
was mixed with laughter like the carpenter Eliza- 
rov’s. 

At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tsybukin 
went away five days before. Then they heard that 
the peasants called as witnesses had been fetched; 
their old workman who had received a notice to ap- 
pear went too. 

The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had 
passed, and Tsybukin was still not back, and there 
was no news. Towards the evening on Tuesday 
Varvara was sitting at the open window, listening 
for tier husband to come. In the next room Lipa 
was playing with her baby. She was tossing him up 
in her arms and saying enthusiastically: 

“ You will grow up ever so big, ever so big. You 
will be a peasant, we shall go out to work together ! 
We shall go out to work together ! ” 

“ Come, come,” said Varvara, offended. “ Go 
out to work, what an idea, you silly girl! He will 
be a merchant . . . ! ” 


2 16 The Tales of Chekhov 

Lipa sang softly, but a minute later she forgot 
and again : 

“ You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You 
will be a peasant, we’ll go out to work together.” 

“ There she is at it again ! ” 

Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, stood still in the 
doorway and asked: 

“Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why 
do I feel so sorry for him? ” she went on in a quiv- 
ering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. 
“Who is he? What is he like? As light as a little 
feather, as a little crumb, but I love him; I love him 
like a real person. Here he can do nothing, he 
can’t talk, and yet I know what he wants with his 
little eyes.” 

Varvara was listening; the sound of the evening 
train coming in to the station reached her. Had 
her husband come? She did not hear and she did 
not heed what Lipa was saying, she had no idea how 
the time passed, but only trembled all over — not 
from dread, but intense curiosity. She saw a cart 
full of peasants roll quickly by with a rattle. It 
was the witnesses coming back from the station. 
When the cart passed the shop the old workman 
jumped out and walked into the yard. She could 
hear him being greeted in the yard and being asked 
some questions. . . . 

“ Deprivation of rights and all his property,” he 
said loudly, “ and six years’ penal servitude in Si- 
beria.” 

She could see Aksinya come out of the shop by 
the back way; she had just been selling kerosene, 


In the Ravine 


217 

and in one hand held a bottle and in the other a can, 
and in her mouth she had some silver coins. 

“ Where is father? ” she asked, lisping. 

“ At the station,” answered the labourer. 

When it gets a little darker,’ he said, 4 then I 
* shall come.’ ” 

And when it became known all through the house- 
hold that Anisim was sentenced to penal servitude, 
the cook in the kitchen suddenly broke into a wail as 
though at a funeral, imagining that this was de- 
manded by the proprieties : 

“ There is no one to care for us now you have 
gone, Anisim Grigoritch, our bright falcon. . . .” 

The dogs began barking in alarm. Varvara ran 
to the window, and rushing about in distress, shouted 
to the cook with all her might, straining her voice : 

“ Sto-op, Stepanida, sto-op ! Don’t harrow us, 
for Christ’s sake ! ” 

They forgot to set the samovar, they could think 
of nothing. Only Lipa could not make out what it 
was all about and went on playing with her baby. 

When the old father arrived from the station they 
asked him no questions. He greeted them and 
walked through all the rooms in silence; he had no 
supper. 

“ There was no one to see about things . . .” 
Varvara began when they were alone. “ I said you 
should have asked some of the gentry, you would 
not heed me at the time. ... A petition 
would . . .” 

“ I saw to things,” said her husband with a wave 
of his hand. “ When Anisim was condemned I 


2l8 


The Tales of Chekhov 


went to the gentleman who was defending him. 
‘ It’s no use now,* he said, ‘ it’s too late ’ ; and Ani- 
sim said the same; it’s too late. But all the same 
as I came out of the court I made an agreement 
with a lawyer, I paid him something in advance. 
I’ll wait a week and then I will go again. It is as 
God wills.” 

Again the old man walked through all the rooms, 
and when he went back to Varvara he said: 

“ I must be ill. My head’s in a sort of . . . fog. 
My thoughts are in a maze.” 

He closed the door that Lipa might not hear, and 
went on softly : 

“ I am unhappy about my money. Do you re- 
member on Low Sunday before his wedding Anisim’s 
bringing me some new roubles and half-roubles? 
One parcel I put away at the time, but the others I 
mixed with my own money. When my uncle Dmitri 
Filatitch — the kingdom of heaven be his — was 
alive, he used constantly to go journeys to Moscow 
and to the Crimea to buy goods. He had a wife, 
and this same wife, when he was away buying goods, 
used to take up with other men. She had half a 
dozen children. And when uncle was in his cups he 
would laugh and say: ‘ I never can make out,’ he 
used to say, ‘ which are my children and which are 
other people’s.’ An easy-going disposition, to be 
sure; and so I now can’t distinguish which are gen- 
uine roubles and which are false ones. And it 
seems to me that they are all false.” 

“ Nonsense, God bless you.” 

“ I take a ticket at the station, I give the man 


In the Ravine 


219 

three roubles, and I keep fancying they are false. 
And I am frightened. I must be ill.” 

“ There’s no denying it, we are all in God’s hands. 
. . . Oh dear, dear . . said Varvara, and she 
shook her head. “ You ought to think about this, 
Grigory Petrovitch: you never know, anything may 
happen, you are not a young man. See they don’t 
wrong your grandchild when you are dead and gone. 
Oy, I am afraid they will be unfair to Nikifor ! He 
has as good as no father, his mother’s young and 
foolish . . . you ought to secure something for him, 
poor little boy, at least the land, Butyokino, Grig- 
ory Petrovitch, really ! Think it over ! ” Varvara 
went on persuading him. “ The pretty boy, one is 
sorry for him! You go to-morrow and make out a 
deed; why put it off? ” 

“ I’d forgotten about my grandson,” said Tsy- 
bukin. “ I must go and have a look at him. So 
you say the boy is all right? Well, let him grow up, 
please God.” 

He opened the door and, crooking his finger, 
beckoned to Lipa. She went up to him with the 
baby in her arms. 

“ If there is anything you want, Lipinka, you ask 
for it,” he said. “ And eat anything you like, we 
don’t grudge it, so long as it does you good. . . .” 
He made the sign of the cross over the baby. 
“ And take care of my grandchild. My son is gone, 
but my grandson is left.” 

Tears rolled down his cheeks; he gave a sob and 
went away. Soon afterwards he went to bed and 
slept soundly after seven sleepless nights. 


220 


The Tales of Chekhov 


VII 

Old Tsybukin went to the town for a short time. 
Someone told Aksinya that he had gone to the notary 
to make his will and that he was leaving Butyokino, 
the very place where she had set up a brickyard, to 
Nikifor, his grandson. She was informed of this in 
the morning when old Tsybukin and Varvara were 
sitting near the steps under the birch-tree, drinking 
their tea. She closed the shop in the front and at 
the back, gathered together all the keys she had, and 
flung them at her father-in-law’s feet. 

“ I am not going on working for you,” she began 
in a loud voice, and suddenly broke into sobs. “ It 
seems I am not your daughter-in-law, but a servant ! 
Everybody’s jeering and saying, ‘ See what a servant 
the Tsybukins have got hold of ! ’ I did not come 
to you for wages! I am not a beggar, I am not a 
slave, I have a father and mother.” 

She did not wipe away her tears, she fixed upon 
her father-in-law eyes full of tears, vindictive, 
squinting with wrath; her face and neck were red 
and tense, and she was shouting at the top of her 
voice. 

“ I don’t mean to go on being a slave ! ” she went 
on. “ I am worn out. When it is work, when it is 
sitting in the shop day in and day out, scurrying out 
at night for vodka — then it is my share, but when 
it is giving away the land then it is for that convict’s 
wife and her imp. She is mistress here, and I am 


In the Ravine 


221 


her servant. Give her everything, the convict’s wife, 
and may it choke her ! I am going home 1 Find your- 
selves some other fool, you damned Herods! ” 

Tsybukin had never in his life scolded or pun- 
ished his children, and had never dreamed that one 
of his family could speak to him rudely or behave 
disrespectfully; and now he was very much fright- 
ened; he ran into the house and there hid behind 
the cupboard. And Varvara was so much flustered 
that she could not get up from her seat, and only 
waved her hands before her as though she were 
warding off a bee. 

“Oh, Holy Saints! what’s the meaning of it?” 
she muttered in horror. “ What is she shouting? 
Oh, dear, dear I . . . People will hear! Hush. 
Oh, hush ! ” 

“ He has given Butyokino to the convict’s wife,” 
Aksinya went on bawling. “ Give her everything 
now, I don’t want anything from you ! Let me 
alone! You are all a gang of thieves here! I 
have seen my fill of it, I have had enough! You 
have robbed folks coming in and going out; you 
have robbed old and young alike, you brigands! 
And who has been selling vodka without a licence? 
And false money? You’ve filled boxes full of false 
coins, and now I am no more use ! ” 

A crowd had by now collected at the open gate 
and was staring into the yard. 

“ Let the people look,” bawled Aksinya. “ I 
will shame you all! You shall burn with shame! 
You shall grovel at my feet. Hey! Stepan,” she 


222 


The Tales of Chekhov 


called to the deaf man, “ let us go home this min- 
ute ! Let us go to my father and mother; I don’t 
want to live with convicts. Get ready ! ” 

Clothes were hanging on lines stretched across 
the yard; she snatched off her petticoats and blouses 
still wet and flung them into the deaf man’s arms. 
Then in her fury she dashed about the yard by the 
linen, tore down all of it, and what was not hers 
she threw on the ground and trampled upon. 

“ Holy Saints, take her away,” moaned Varvara. 
“What a woman! Give her Butyokino ! Give it 
her, for the Lord’s sake ! ” 

“Well! Wha-at a woman!” people were say- 
ing at the gate. “ She’s a wo-oman! She’s going 
it — something like ! ” 

Aksinya ran into the kitchen where washing was 
going on. Lipa was washing alone, the cook had 
gone to the river to rinse the clothes. Steam was 
rising from the trough and from the caldron on the 
side of the stove, and the kitchen was thick and 
stifling from the steam. On the floor was a heap 
of unwashed clothes, and Nikifor, kicking up his 
little red legs, had been put down on a bench near 
them, so that if he fell he should not hurt himself. 
Just as Aksinya went in Lipa took the former’s 
chemise out of the heap and put it in the trough, 
and was just stretching out her hand to a big 
ladle of boiling water which was standing on the 
table. 

“ Give it here,” said Aksinya, looking at her with 
hatred, and snatching the chemise out of the trough; 
“it is not your business to touch my linen! You 


In the Ravine 


223 

are a convict’s wife, and ought to know your place 
and who you are.” 

Lipa gazed at her, taken aback, and did not un- 
derstand, but suddenly she caught the look Aksinya 
turned upon the child, and at once she understood 
and went numb all over. 

“ You’ve taken my land, so here you are ! ” Say- 
ing this Aksinya snatched up the ladle with the boil- 
ing water and flung it over Nikifor. 

After this there was heard a scream such as had 
never been heard before in Ukleevo, and no one 
would have believed that a little weak creature like 
Lipa could scream like that. And it was suddenly 
silent in the yard. 

Aksinya walked into the house with her old naive 
smile. . . . The deaf man kept moving about the 
yard with his arms full of linen, then he began hang- 
ing it up again, in silence, without haste. And until 
the cook came back from the river no one ventured 
to go into the kitchen and see what was there. 

VIII 

Nikifor was taken to the district hospital, and 
towards evening he died there. Lipa did not wait 
for them to come for her, but wrapped the dead 
baby in its little quilt and carried it home. 

The hospital, a new one recently built, with big 
windows, stood high up on a hill; it was glittering 
from the setting sun and looked as though it were 
on fire from inside. There was a little village be- 
low. Lipa went down along the road, and before 


The Tales of Chekhov 


224 

reaching the village sat down by a pond. A woman 
brought a horse down to drink and the horse did not 
drink. 

“What more do you want?” said the woman 
to it softly. “ What do you want? ” 

A boy in a red shirt, sitting at the water’s edge, 
was washing his father’s boots. And not another 
soul was in sight either in the village or on the hill. 

“ It’s not drinking,” said Lipa, looking at the 
horse. 

Then the woman with the horse and the boy with 
the boots walked aw r ay, and there was no one left 
at all. The sun went to bed wrapped in cloth of 
gold and purple, and long clouds, red and lilac, 
stretched across the sky, guarded its slumbers. 
Somewhere far away a bittern cried, a hollow, mel- 
ancholy sound like a cow shut up in a barn. The 
cry of that mysterious bird was heard every spring, 
but no one knew what it was like or where it lived. 
At the top of the hill by the hospital, in the bushes 
close to the pond, and in the fields the nightingales 
were trilling. The cuckoo kept reckoning someone’s 
years and losing count and beginning again. In the 
pond the frogs called angrily to one another, strain- 
ing themselves to bursting, and one could even make 
out the words: “That’s what you are! That’s 
what you are!” What a noise there was! It 
seemed as though all these creatures were singing 
and shouting so that no one might sleep on that 
spring night, so that all, even the angry frogs, might 
appreciate and enjoy every minute: life is given 
only once. 


In the Ravine 225 

A silver half-moon was shining in the sky; there 
were many stars. Lipa had no idea how long she 
sat by the pond, but when she got up and walked 
on everybody was asleep in the little village, and 
there was not a single light. It was probably about 
nine miles’ walk home, but she had not the strength, 
she had not the power to think how to go : the moon 
gleamed now in front, now on the right, and the 
same cuckoo kept calling in a voice grown husky, 
with a chuckle as though gibing at her: “ Oy, look 
out, you’ll lose your way! ” Lipa walked rapidly; 
she lost the kerchief from her head . . . she looked 
at the sky and wondered where her baby’s soul was 
now: was it following her, or floating aloft yonder 
among the stars and thinking nothing now of his 
mother? Oh, how lonely it was in the open coun- 
try at night, in the midst of that singing when one 
cannot sing oneself; in the midst of the incessant 
cries of joy when one cannot oneself be joyful, when 
the moon, which cares not whether it is spring or 
winter, whether men are alive or dead, looks down 
as lonely, too. . . . When there is grief in the heart 
it is hard to be without people. If only her mother, 
Praskovya, had been with her, or Crutch, or the 
cook, or some peasant ! 

“ Boo-oo! ” cried the bittern. “ Boo-oo! ” 

And suddenly she heard clearly the sound of hu- 
man speech: 

“ Put the horses in, Vavila ! ” 

By the wayside a camp fire was burning ahead 
of her: the flames had died down, there were only 
red embers. She could hear the horses munching. 


226 


The Tales of Chekhov 


In the darkness she could see the outlines of two 
carts, one with a barrel, the other, a lower one with 
sacks in it, and the figures of two men; one was 
leading a horse to put it into the shafts, the other 
was standing motionless by the fire with his hands 
behind his back. A dog growled by the carts. The 
one who was leading the horse stopped and said : 

“ It seems as though someone were coming along 
the road.” 

“ Sharik, be quiet ! ” the other called to the dog. 

And from the voice one could tell that the second 
was an old man. Lipa stopped and said: 

“ God help you.” 

The old man went up to her and answered not 
immediately: 

“ Good-evening ! ” 

“ Your dog does not bite, grandfather? ” 

“ No, come along, he won’t touch you.” 

“ I have been at the hospital,” said Lipa after a 
pause. “ My little son died there. Here I am 
carrying him home.” 

It must have been unpleasant for the old man to 
hear this, for he moved away and said hurriedly: 

“ Never mind, my dear. It’s God’s will. You 
are very slow, lad,” he added, addressing his com- 
panion; “ look alive! ” 

“Your yoke’s nowhere,” said the young man; 
“ it is not to be seen.” 

“ You are a regular Vavila.” 

The old man picked up an ember, blew on it — 
only his eyes and nose were lighted up — then, when 
they had found the yoke, he went with the light to 


In the Ravine 


227 


Lipa and looked at her, and his look expressed com- 
passion and tenderness. 

“ You are a mother,” he said; “ every mother 
grieves for her child.” 

And he sighed and shook his head as he said it. 
Vavila threw something on the fire, stamped on 
it — and at once it was very dark; the vision van- 
ished, and as before there were only the fields, 
the sky with the stars, and the noise of the birds 
hindering each other from sleep. And the landrail 
called, it seemed, in the very place where the fire had 
been. 

But a minute passed, and again she could see the 
two carts and the old man and lanky Vavila. The 
carts creaked as they went out on the road. 

“ Are you holy men? ” Lipa asked the old man. 

“ No. We are from Firsanovo.” 

“ You looked at me just now and my heart was 
softened. And the young man is so gentle. I 
thought you must be holy men.” 

“ Are you going far? ” 

“ To Ukleevo.” 

“ Get in, we will give you a lift as far as Kuz- 
menki, then you go straight on and we turn off to 
the left.” 

Vavila got into the cart with the barrel and the 
old man and Lipa got into the other. They moved 
at a walking pace, Vavila in front. 

“ My baby was in torment all day,” said Lipa. 
“ He looked at me with his little eyes and said 
nothing; he wanted to speak and could not. Holy 
Father, Queen of Heaven ! In my grief I kept fall- 


228 


The Tales of Chekhov 


ing down on the floor. I stood up and fell down 
by the bedside. And tell me, grandfather, why a 
little thing should be tormented before his death? 
When a grown-up person, a man or woman, are in 
torment their sins are forgiven, but why a little 
thing, when he has no sins? Why? ” 

“ Who can tell? ” answered the old man. 

They drove on for half an hour in silence. 

“ We can’t know everything, how and wherefore,” 
said the old man. “ It is ordained for the bird to 
have not four wings but two because it is able to 
fly with two; and so it is ordained for man not to 
know everything but only a half or a quarter. As 
much as he needs to know so as to live, so much he 
knows.” 

“ It is better for me to go on foot, grandfather. 
Now my heart is all of a tremble.” 

“ Never mind, sit still.” 

The old man yawned and made the sign of the 
cross over his mouth. 

“ Never mind,” he repeated. “ Yours is not the 
worst of sorrows. Life is long, there will be good 
and bad to come, there will be everything. Great 
is mother Russia,” he said, and looked round on each 
side of him. “ I have been all over Russia, and I 
have seen everything in her, and you may believe 
my words, my dear. There will be good and there 
will be bad. I went as a delegate from my village 
to Siberia, and I have been to the Amur River and 
the Altai Mountains and I settled in Siberia; I 
worked the land there, then I was homesick for 
mother Russia and I came back to my native village. 


In the Ravine 


229 

We came back to Russia on foot; and I remember 
we went on a steamer, and I was thin as thin, all 
in rags, barefoot, freezing with cold, and gnawing 
a crust, and a gentleman who was on the steamer — 
the kingdom of heaven be his if he is dead — looked 
at me pitifully, and the tears came into his eyes. 

‘ Ah,’ he said, ‘ your bread is black, your days are 
black. . . And when I got home, as the saying 
is, there was neither stick nor stall; I had a wife, 
but I left her behind in Siberia, she was buried there. 
So I am living as a day labourer. And yet I tell 
you: since then I have had good as well as bad. 
Here I do not want to die, my dear, I would be glad 
to live another twenty years; so there has been 
more of the good. And great is our mother Rus- 
sia! ” and again he gazed to each side and looked 
round. 

“ Grandfather,” Lipa asked, u when anyone dies, 
how many days does his soul walk the earth? ” 

“Who can tell! Ask Vavila here, he has been 
to school. Now they teach them everything. 
Vavila ! ” the old man called to him. 

“ Yes! ” 

“ Vavila, when anyone dies how long does his 
soul walk the earth?” 

Vavila stopped the horse and only then answered: 

“ Nine days. My uncle Kirilla died and his soul 
lived in our hut thirteen days after.” 

“ How do you know? ” 

“ For thirteen days there was a knocking in the 
stove.” 

“ Well, that’s all right. Go on,” said the old 


230 


The Tales of Chekhov 


man, and it could be seen that he did not believe 
a word of all that. 

Near Kuzmenki the cart turned into the high 
road while Lipa went straight on. It was by now 
getting light. As she went down into the ravine 
the Ukleevo huts and the church were hidden in fog. 
It was cold, and it seemed to her that the same 
cuckoo was calling still. 

When Lipa reached home the cattle had not yet 
been driven out; everyone was asleep. She sat down 
on the steps and waited. The old man was the first 
to come out; he understood all that had happened 
from the first glance at her, and for a long time he 
could not articulate a word, but only moved his lips 
without a sound. 

“ Ech, Lipa,” he said, “ you did not take care 
of my grandchild. . . .” 

Varvara was awakened. She clasped her hands 
and broke into sobs, and immediately began laying 
out the baby. 

“ And he was a pretty child . . .” she said. 
“ Oh, dear, dear. ... You only had the one child, 
and you did not take care enough of him, you silly 
girl ” 

There was a requiem service in the morning and 
the evening. The funeral took place the next day, 
and after it the guests and the priests ate a great 
deal, and with such greed that one might have 
thought that they had not tasted food for a long 
time. Lipa waited at table, and the priest, lifting 
his fork on which there was a salted mushroom, 
said to her: 


In the Ravine 


231 

“ Don’t grieve for the babe. For of such is the 
kingdom of heaven.” 

And only when they had all separated Lipa real- 
ized fully that there was no Nikifor and never would 
be, she realized it and broke into sobs. And she 
did not know what room to go into to sob, for she 
felt that now that her child was dead there was 
no place for her in the house, that she had no rea- 
son to be here, that she was in the way; and the 
others felt it, too. 

“Now what are you bellowing for?” Aksinya 
shouted, suddenly appearing in the doorway; in hon- 
our of the funeral she was dressed all in new clothes 
and had powdered her face. “ Shut up ! ” 

Lipa tried to stop but could not, and sobbed louder 
than ever. 

“Do you hear?” shouted Aksinya, and she 
stamped her foot in violent anger. “ Who is it 
I am speaking to? Go out of the yard and don’t 
set foot here again, you convict’s wife. Get 
away.” 

“ There, there, there,” the old man put in fussily. 
“ Aksinya, don’t make such an outcry, my girl. . . . 
She is crying, it is only natural . . . her child is 
dead. . . .” 

“ ‘ It’s only natural,’ ” Aksinya mimicked him. 
“ Let her stay the night here, and don’t let me see 
a trace of her here to-morrow ! ‘ It’s only nat- 

ural!’ . . she mimicked him again, and, laugh- 
ing, she went into the shop. 

Early the next morning Lipa went off to her 
mother at Torguevo. 


232 


The Tales of Chekhov 


IX 

At the present time the steps and the front door 
of the shop have been repainted and are as bright 
as though they were new, there are gay geraniums 
in the windows as of old, and what happened in 
Tsybukin’s house and yard three years ago is al- 
most forgotten. 

Grigory Petrovitch is looked upon as the master 
as he was in old days, but in reality everything has 
passed into Aksinya’s hands; she buys and sells, and 
nothing can be done without her consent. The 
brickyard is working well; and as bricks are wanted 
for the railway the price has gone up to twenty- 
four roubles a thousand; peasant women and girls 
cart the bricks to the station and load them up in 
the trucks and earn a quarter-rouble a day for the 
work. 

Aksinya has gone into partnership with the Hry- 
min Juniors, and their factory is now called Hrymin 
Juniors and Co. They have opened a tavern near 
the station, and now the expensive concertina is 
played not at the factory but at the tavern, and the 
head of the post office often goes there, and he, 
too, is engaged in some sort of traffic, and the sta- 
tionmaster, too. Hrymin Juniors have presented 
the deaf man Stepan with a gold watch, and he is 
constantly taking it out of his pocket and putting it 
to his ear. 

People say of Aksinya that she has become a 
person of power; and it is true that when she drives 


In the Ravine 233 

in the morning to her brickyard, handsome and 
happy, with the naive smile on her face, and after- 
wards when she is giving orders there, one is aware 
of great power in her. Everyone is afraid of her 
in the house and in the village and in the brickyard. 
When she goes to the post the head of the postal 
department jumps up and says to her: 

“ I humbly beg you to be seated, Aksinya Abra- 
movna ! ” 

A certain landowner, middle-aged but foppish, in 
a tunic of fine cloth and patent leather high boots, 
sold her a horse, and was so carried away by talk- 
ing to her that he knocked down the price to meet 
her wishes. He held her hand a long time and, 
looking into her merry, sly, naive eyes, said: 

“For a woman like you, Aksinya Abramovna, I 
should be ready to do anything you please. Only 
say when we can meet where no one will interfere 
with us? ” 

“ Why, when you please.” 

And since then the elderly fop drives up to the 
shop almost every day to drink beer. And the beer 
is horrid, bitter as wormwood. The landowner 
shakes his head, but he drinks it. 

Old Tsybukin does not have anything to do with 
the business now at all. He does not keep any 
money because he cannot distinguish between the 
good and the false, but he is silent, he says nothing 
of this weakness. He has become forgetful, and 
if they don’t give him food he does not ask for it. 
They have grown used to having dinner without 
him, and Varvara often says: 


234 The Tales of Chekhov 

“ He went to bed again yesterday without any 
supper.” 

And she says it unconcernedly because she is used 
to it. For some reason, summer and winter alike, 
he wears a fur coat, and only in very hot weather 
he does not go out but sits at home. As a rule put- 
ting on his fur coat, wrapping it round him and 
turning up his collar, he walks about the village, 
along the road to the station, or sits from morning 
till night on the seat near the church gates. Fie 
sits there without stirring. Passers-by bow to him, 
but he does not respond, for as of old he dislikes 
the peasants. If he is asked a question he answers 
quite rationally and politely, but briefly. 

There is a rumour going about in the village that 
his daughter-in-law turns him out of the house and 
gives him nothing to eat, and that he is fed by 
charity; some are glad, others are sorry for him. 

Varvara has grown even fatter and whiter, and 
as before she is active in good works, and Aksinya 
does not interfere with her. 

There is so much jam now that they have not 
time to eat it before the fresh fruit comes in; it 
goes sugary, and Varvara almost sheds tears, not 
knowing what to do with it. 

They have begun to forget about Anisim. A 
letter has come from him written in verse on a 
big sheet of paper as though it were a petition, 
all in the same splendid handwriting. Evidently 
his friend Samorodov was sharing his punishment. 
Under the verses in an ugly, scarcely legible hand- 
writing there was a single line : “ I am ill here all 


In the Ravine 


235 

the time; I am wretched, for Christ’s sake help 
me ! ” 

Towards evening — it was a fine autumn day — 
old Tsybukin was sitting near the church gates, w T ith 
the collar of his fur coat turned up and nothing of 
him could be seen but his nose and the peak of his 
cap. At the other end of the long seat was sitting 
Elizarov the contractor, and beside him Yakov the 
school watchman, a toothless old man of seventy. 
Crutch and the watchman were talking. 

“ Children ought to give food and drink to the 
old. . . . Honour thy father and mother . . 
Yakov was saying with irritation, “ while she, this 
daughter-in-law, has turned her father-in-law out of 
his own house; the old man has neither food nor 
drink, where is he to go? He has not had a morsel 
for these three days.” 

“ Three days ! ” said Crutch, amazed. 

“ Here he sits and does not say a word. He has 
grown feeble. And why be silent? He ought to 
prosecute her, they wouldn’t flatter her in the police 
court.” 

“Wouldn’t flatter whom?” asked Crutch, not 
hearing. 

“ What?” 

“ The woman’s all right, she does her best. In 
their line of business they can’t get on without that 
. . . without sin, I mean. . . .” 

“ From his own house,” Yakov went on with 
irritation. “ Save up and buy your own house, then 
turn people out of it ! She is a nice one, to be sure 1 
A pla-ague ! ” 


236 The Tales of Chekhov 

Tsybukin listened and did not stir. 

“ Whether it is your own house or others’ it 
makes no difference so long as it is warm and the 
women don’t scold . . said Crutch, and he 
laughed. “ When I was young I was very fond of 
my Nastasya. She was a quiet woman. And she 
used to be always at it: ‘ Buy a house, Makaritch! 
Buy a house, Makaritch! Buy a house, Makar- 
itch ! ’ She was dying and yet she kept on saying, 
‘ Buy yourself a racing droshky, Makaritch, that 
you may not have to walk.’ And I bought her 
nothing but gingerbread.” 

“ Her husband’s deaf and stupid,” Yakov went 
on, not hearing Crutch; “ a regular fool, just like 
a goose. He can’t understand anything. Hit a 
goose on the head with a stick and even then it 
does not understand.” 

Crutch got up to go home to the factory. Yakov 
also got up, and both of them went off together, still 
talking. When they had gone fifty paces old Tsy- 
bukin got up, too, and walked after them, stepping 
uncertainly as though on slippery ice. 

The village was already plunged in the dusk of 
evening and the sun only gleamed on the upper part 
of the road which ran wriggling like a snake up the 
slope. Old women were coming back from the 
woods and children with them; they were bringing 
baskets of mushrooms. Peasant women and girls 
came in a crowd from the station where they had 
been loading the trucks with bricks, and their noses 
and their cheeks under their eyes were covered with 
red brick-dust. They were singing. Ahead of 


In the Ravine 


237 

them all was Lipa singing in a high voice, with her 
eyes turned upwards to the sky, breaking into trills 
as though triumphant and ecstatic that at last the 
day was over and she could rest. In the crowd 
was her mother Praskovya, who was walking with 
a bundle in her arms and breathless as usual. 

“ Good-evening, Makaritch ! ” cried Lipa, seeing 
Crutch. “ Good-evening, darling! ” 

“ Good-evening, Lipinka,” cried Crutch delighted. 
“ Dear girls and women, love the rich carpenter ! 
Ho-ho ! My little children, my little children. 
(Crutch gave a gulp.) My dear little axes! ” 
Crutch and Yakov went on further and could still 
be heard talking. Then after them the crowd was 
met by old Tsybukin and there was a sudden hush. 
Lipa and Praskovya had dropped a little behind, 
and when the old man was on a level with them 
Lipa bowed down low and said: 

“ Good-evening, Grigory Petrovitch.” 

Her mother, too, bowed down. The old man 
stopped and, saying nothing, looked at the two in 
silence; his lips were quivering and his eyes full of 
tears. Lipa took out of her mother’s bundle a 
piece of savoury turnover and gave it him. He 
took it and began eating. 

The sun had by now set: its glow died away on 
the road above. It grew dark and cool. Lipa 
and Praskovya walked on and for some time they 
kept crossing themselves. 


THE HUNTSMAN 


THE HUNTSMAN 


A sultry, stifling midday. Not a cloudlet in the 
sky. . . . The sun-baked grass had a disconsolate, 
hopeless look: even if there were rain it could never 
be green again. . . . The forest stood silent, mo- 
tionless, as though it were looking at something 
with its tree-tops or expecting something. 

At the edge of the clearing a tall, narrow-shoul- 
dered man of forty in a red shirt, in patched trousers 
that had been a gentleman’s, and in high boots, was 
slouching along with a lazy, shambling step. He 
was sauntering along the road. On the right was 
the green of the clearing, on the left a golden sea of 
ripe rye stretched to the very horizon. He was red 
and perspiring, a white cap with a straight jockey 
peak, evidently a gift from some open-handed young 
gentleman, perched jauntily on his handsome flaxen 
head. Across his shoulder hung a game-bag with a 
blackcock lying in it. The man held a double- 
barrelled gun cocked in his hand, and screwed up his 
eyes in the direction of his lean old dog who was 
running on ahead sniffing the bushes. There was 
stillness all round, not a sound . . . everything liv- 
ing was hiding away from the heat. 

“ Yegor Vlassitch ! ” the huntsman suddenly heard 
a soft voice. 

He started and, looking round, scowled. Beside 
241 


The Tales of Chekhov 


242 

him, as though she had sprung out of the earth, 
stood a pale-faced woman of thirty with a sickle in 
her hand. She was trying to look into his face, 
and was smiling diffidently. 

“ Oh, it is you, Pelagea ! ” said the huntsman, 
stopping and deliberately uncocking the gun. 
“H’m! . . . How have you come here?” 

“ The women from our village are working here, 
so I have come with them. ... As a labourer, 
Yegor Vlassitch.” 

“ Oh . . .” growled Yegor Vlassitch, and slowly 
walked on. 

Pelagea followed him. They walked in silence 
for twenty paces. 

“ I have not seen you for a long time, Yegor 
Vlassitch . . .” said Pelagea looking tenderly at 
the huntsman’s moving shoulders. u I have not 
seen you since you came into our hut at Easter 
for a drink of water . . . you came in at Easter 
for a minute and then God knows how . . . drunk 
. . . you scolded and beat me and went away . . . 
I have been waiting and waiting . . . I’ve tired my 
eyes out looking for you. Ah, Yegor Vlassitch, 
Yegor Vlassitch! you might look in just once! ” 

“ What is there for me to do there? ” 

“ Of course there is nothing for you to do . . . 
though to be sure . . . there is the place to look 
after. . . . To see how things are going. . . . You 
are the master. ... I say, you have shot a black- 
cock, Yegor Vlassitch! You ought to sit down and 
rest!” 

As she said all this Pelagea laughed like a silly 


The Huntsman 


243 

girl and looked up at Yegor’s face. Her face was 
simply radiant with happiness. 

“Sit down? If you like . . said Yegor in a 
tone of indifference, and he chose a spot between 
two fir-trees. “Why are you standing? You sit 
down too.” 

Pelagea sat a little way off in the sun and, ashamed 
of her joy, put her hand over her smiling mouth. 
Two minutes passed in silence. 

“ You might come for once,” said Pelagea. 

“What for?” sighed Yegor, taking off his cap 
and wiping his red forehead with his hand. 
“ There is no object in my coming. To go for an 
hour or two is only waste of time, it’s simply up- 
setting you, and to live continually in the village 
my soul could not endure. . . . You know yourself 
I am a pampered man. ... I want a bed to sleep 
in, good tea to drink, and refined conversation. . . . 
I want all the niceties, while you live in poverty and 
dirt in the village. ... I couldn’t stand it for a 
day. Suppose there were an edict that I must live 
with you, I should either set fire to the hut or lay 
hands on myself. From a boy I've had this love 
for ease; there is no help for it.” 

“ Where are you living now? ” 

“ With the gentleman here, Dmitry Ivanitch, 
as a huntsman. I furnish his table with game, but 
he keeps me . . . more for his pleasure than any- 
thing.” 

“That’s not proper work you’re doing, Yegor 
Vlassitch. . . . For other people it’s a pastime, but 
with you it’s like a trade . . . like real work.” 


244 The Tales of Chekhov 

“ You don’t understand, you silly,” said Yegor, 
gazing gloomily at the sky. “ You have never un- 
derstood, and as long as you live you will never 
understand what sort of man I am. ... You think 
of me as a foolish man, gone to the bad, but to any- 
one who understands I am the best shot there is in 
the whole district. The gentry feel that, and they 
have even printed things about me in a magazine. 
There isn’t a man to be compared with me as a 
sportsman. . . . And it is not because I am pam- 
pered and proud that I look down upon your village 
work. From my childhood, you know, I have never 
had any calling apart from guns and dogs. If they 
took away my gun, I used to go out with the fishing- 
hook, if they took the hook I caught things with my 
hands. And I went in for horse-dealing too, I used 
to go to the fairs when I had the money, and you 
know that if a peasant goes in for being a sports- 
man, or a horse-dealer, it’s good-bye to the plough. 
Once the spirit of freedom has taken a man you will 
never root it out of him. In the same way, if a 
gentleman goes in for being an actor or for any 
other art, he will never make an official or a land- 
owner. You are a woman, and you do not under- 
stand, but one must understand that.” 

“ I understand, Yegor Vlassitch.” 

“ You don’t understand if you are going to 
cry. . . .” 

“ I . . . I’m not crying,” said Pelagea, turning 
away. ft It’s a sin, Yegor Vlassitch! You might 
stay a day with luckless me, any.way. It’s twelve 
years since I was married to you, and . . . and 


The Huntsman 


24 5 

. . . there has never once been love between us! 

. . . I . . . I am not crying.” 

“ Love . . muttered Yegor, scratching his 
hand. “ There can’t be any love. It’s only in name 
we are husband and wife; we aren’t really. In 
your eyes I am a wild man, and in mine you are a 
simple peasant woman with no understanding. Are 
we well matched? I am a free, pampered, profli- 
gate man, while you are a working woman, going in 
bark shoes and never straightening your back. The 
way I think of myself is that I am the foremost man 
in every kind of sport, and you look at me with pity. 

. . . Is that being well matched? ” 

“ But we are married, you know, Yegor Vlas- 
sitch,” sobbed Pelagea. 

“ Not married of our free will. . . . Have you 
forgotten? You have to thank Count Sergey Pav- 
lovitch and yourself. Out of envy, because I shot 
better than he did, the Count kept giving me wine 
for a whole month, and when a man’s drunk you 
could make him change his religion, let alone getting 
married. To pay me out he married me to you 
when I was drunk. ... A huntsman to a herd-girl ! 
You saw I was drunk, why did you marry me? You 
were not a serf, you know; you could have resisted. 
Of course it was a bit of luck for a herd-girl to 
marry a huntsman, but you ought to have thought 
about it. Well, now be miserable, cry. It’s a joke 
for the Count, but a crying matter for you. . . . 
Beat yourself against the wall.” 

A silence followed. Three wild ducks flew over 
the clearing. Yegor followed them with his eyes 


246 The Tales of Chekhov 

till, transformed into three scarcely visible dots, they 
sank down far beyond the forest. 

“ How do you live? ” he asked, moving his eyes 
from the ducks to Pelagea. 

“ Now I am going out to work, and in the winter 
I take a child from the Foundling Hospital and 
bring it up on the bottle. They give me a rouble and 
a half a month.” 

“Oh. . . ” 

Again a silence. From the strip that had been 
reaped floated a soft song which broke off at the 
very beginning. It was too hot to sing. 

“ They say you have put up a new hut for Aku- 
lina,” said Pelagea. 

Yegor did not speak. 

“ So she is dear to you. . . 

“ It’s your luck, it’s fate ! ” said the huntsman, 
stretching. “ You must put up with it, poor thing. 
But good-bye, I’ve been chattering long enough. 

. . . I must be at Boltovo by the evening.” 

Yegor rose, stretched himself, and slung his gun 
over his shoulder; Pelagea got up. 

“ And when are you coming to the village? ” she 
asked softly. 

“ I have no reason to, I shall never come sober, 
and you have little to gain from me drunk; I am 
spiteful when I am drunk. Good-bye ! ” 

“ Good-bye, Yegor Vlassitch.” 

Yegor put his cap on the back of his head and, 
clicking to his dog, went on his way. Pelagea stood 
still looking after him. . . . She saw his moving 
shoulder-blades, his jaunty cap, his lazy, careless 


The Huntsman 247 

step, and her eyes were full of sadness and tender 
affection. . . . Her gaze flitted over her husband’s 
tall, lean figure and caressed and fondled it. . . . 
He, as though he felt that gaze, stopped and looked 
round. . . . He did not speak, but from his face, 
from his shrugged shoulders, Pelagea could see that 
he wanted to say something to her. She went up 
to him timidly and looked at him with imploring 
eyes. 

“ Take it,” he said, turning round. 

He gave her a crumpled rouble note and walked 
quickly away. 

“ Good-bye, Yegor Vlassitch,” she said, mechan- 
ically taking the rouble. 

He walked by a long road, straight as a taut 
strap. She, pale and motionless as a statue, stood, 
her eyes seizing every step he took. But the red 
of his shirt melted into the dark colour of his trous- 
ers, his step could not be seen, and the dog could not 
be distinguished from the boots. Nothing could 
be seen but the cap, and . . . suddenly Yegor 
turned off sharply into the clearing and the cap van- 
ished in the greenness. 

“ Good-bye, Yegor Vlassitch,” whispered Pelagea, 
and she stood on tiptoe to see the white cap once 
more. 





HAPPINESS 







HAPPINESS 


A flock of sheep was spending the night on the 
broad steppe road that is called the great high- 
way. Two shepherds were guarding it. One, a 
toothless old man of eighty, with a tremulous face, 
was lying on his stomach at the very edge of the 
road, leaning his elbows on the dusty leaves of a 
plantain; the other, a young fellow with thick black 
eyebrows and no moustache, dressed in the coarse 
canvas of which cheap sacks are made, was lying 
on his back, with his arms under his head, looking 
upwards at the sky, where the stars were slumbering 
and the Milky Way lay stretched exactly above his 
face. 

The shepherds were not alone. A couple of 
yards from them in the dusk that shrouded the road 
a horse made a patch of darkness, and, beside it, 
leaning against the saddle, stood a man in high 
boots and a short full-skirted jacket who looked like 
an overseer on some big estate. Judging from his 
upright and motionless figure, from his manners, 
and his behaviour to the shepherds and to his horse, 
he was a serious, reasonable man who knew his own 
value; even in the darkness signs could be detected 
in him of military carriage and of the majestically 
condescending expression gained by frequent inter- 
course with the gentry and their stewards. 

251 


The Tales of Chekhov 


252 

The sheep were asleep. Against the grey back- 
ground of the dawn, already beginning to cover 
the eastern part of the sky, the silhouettes of sheep 
that were not asleep could be seen here and there; 
they stood with drooping heads, thinking. Their 
thoughts, tedious and oppressive, called forth by 
images of nothing but the broad steppe and the sky, 
the days and the nights, probably weighed upon them 
themselves, crushing them into apathy; and, stand- 
ing there as though rooted to the earth, they noticed 
neither the presence of a stranger nor the uneasiness 
of the dogs. 

The drowsy, stagnant air was full of the monot- 
onous noise inseparable from a summer night on the 
steppes; the grasshoppers chirruped incessantly; the 
quails called, and the young nightingales trilled lan- 
guidly half a mile away in a ravine where a stream 
flowed and willows grew. 

The overseer had halted to ask the shepherds 
for a light for his pipe. He lighted it in silence 
and smoked the whole pipe; then, still without ut- 
tering a word, stood with his elbow on the saddle, 
plunged in thought. The young shepherd took no 
notice of him, he still lay gazing at the sky while 
the old man slowly looked the overseer up and down 
and then asked : 

“ Why, aren’t you Panteley from Makarov’s es- 
tate?” 

“ That’s myself,” answered the overseer. 

“To be sure, I see it is. I didn’t know you — 
that is a sign you will be rich. Where has God 
brought you from? ” 


253 


Happiness 

“ From the Kovylyevsky fields.” 

“ That’s a good way. Are you letting the land 
on the part-crop system? ” 

“ Part of it. Some like that, and some we are 
letting on lease, and some for raising melons and 
cucumbers. I have just come from the mill.” 

A big shaggy old sheep-dog of a dirty white col- 
our with woolly tufts about its nose and eyes walked 
three times quietly round the horse, trying to seem 
unconcerned in the presence of strangers, then all 
at once dashed suddenly from behind at the overseer 
with an angry aged growl ; the other dogs could not 
refrain from leaping up too. 

“ Lie down, you damned brute,” cried the old 
man, raising himself on his elbow; “blast you, you 
devil’s creature.” 

When the dogs were quiet again, the old man 
resumed his former attitude and said quietly: 

“ It was at Kovyli on Ascension Day that Yefim 
Zhmenya died. Don’t speak of it in the dark, it is 
a sin to mention such people. He was a wicked old 
man. I dare say you have heard.” 

“ No, I haven’t.” 

“ Yefim Zhmenya, the uncle of Styopka, the black- 
smith. The whole district round knew him. Aye, 
he was a cursed old man, he was ! I knew him for 
sixty years, ever since Tsar Alexander who beat the 
French was brought from Taganrog to Moscow. 
We went together to meet the dead Tsar, and in 
those days the great highway did not run to Bahmut, 
but from Esaulovka to Gorodishtche, and where 
Kovyli is now, there were bustards’ nests — there 


254 The Tales of Chekhov 

was a bustard’s nest at every step. Even then I 
had noticed that Yefim had given his soul to damna- 
tion, and that the Evil One was in him. I have 
observed that if any man of the peasant class is apt 
to be silent, takes up with old women’s jobs, and 
tries to live in solitude, there is no good in it, and 
Yefim from his youth up was always one to hold 
his tongue and look at you sideways, he always 
seemed to be sulky and bristling like a cock before 
a hen. To go to church or to the tavern or to lark 
i«n the street with the lads was not his fashion, he 
would rather sit alone or be whispering with old 
women. When he was still young he took jobs to 
look after the bees and the market gardens. Good 
folks would come to his market garden sometimes 
and his melons were whistling. One day he caught 
a pike, when folks were looking on, and it laughed 
aloud, ‘Ho-ho-ho-ho!’” 

“ It does happen,” said Panteley. 

The young shepherd turned on his side and, lift- 
ing his black eyebrows, stared intently at the old 
man. 

“ Did you hear the melons whistling? ” he asked. 

“ Hear them I didn’t, the Lord spared me,” 
sighed the old man, “ but folks told me so. It is 
no great wonder . . . the Evil One will begin 
whistling in a stone if he wants to. Before the 
Day of Freedom a rock was humming for three 
days and three nights in our parts. I heard it my- 
self. The pike laughed because Yefim caught a 
devil instead of a pike.” 

The old man remembered something. He got up 


Happiness 255 

quickly on to his knees and, shrinking as though 
from the cold, nervously thrusting his hands into 
his sleeves, he muttered in a rapid womanish gab- 
ble : 

“ Lord save us and have mercy upon us! I was 
walking along the river bank one day to Novopav- 
lovka. A storm was gathering, such a tempest it 
was, preserve us Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven. 
... I was hurrying on as best I could, I looked, 
and beside the path between the thorn bushes — 
the thorn was in flower at the time — there was a 
white bullock coming along. I wondered whose 
bullock it was, and what the devil had sent it there 
for. It was coming along and swinging its tail and 
moo-oo-oo ! but would you believe it, friends, I over- 
take it, I come up close — and it’s not a bullock, 
but Yefim — holy, holy, holy! I make the sign of 
the cross while he stares at me and mutters, showing 
the whites of his eyes; wasn’t I frightened! We 
came alongside, I was afraid to say a word to him — 
the thunder was crashing, the sky was streaked with 
lightning, the willows were bent right down to the 
water — all at once, my friends, God strike me dead 
that I die impenitent, a hare ran across the path . . . 
it ran and stopped, and said like a man: ‘Good- 
evening, peasants.’ Lie down, you brute ! ” the old 
man cried to the shaggy dog, who was moving 
round the horse again. “ Plague take you! ” 

“ It does happen,” said the overseer, still lean- 
ing on the saddle and not stirring; he said this in 
the hollow, toneless voice in which men speak when 
they are plunged in thought. 


256 The Tales of Chekhov 

“ It does happen,” he repeated, in a tone of pro- 
fundity and conviction. 

“ Ugh, he was a nasty old fellow,” the old shep- 
herd went on with somewhat less fervour. “ Five 
years after the Freedom he was flogged by the 
commune at the office, so to show his spite he took 
and sent the throat illness upon all Kovyli. Folks 
died out of number, lots and lots of them, just as in 
cholera. . . 

“ How did he send the illness? ” asked the young 
shepherd after a brief silence. 

“ We all know how, there is no great cleverness 
needed where there is a will to it. Yefim murdered 
people with viper’s fat. That is such a poison that 
folks will die from the mere smell of it, let alone 
the fat.” 

“ That’s true,” Panteley agreed. 

“ The lads wanted to kill him at the time, but 
the old people would not let them. It would never 
have done to kill him; he knew the place where the 
treasure is hidden, and not another soul did know. 
The treasures about here are charmed so that you 
may find them and not see them, but he did see 
them. At times he would walk along the river bank 
or in the forest, and under the bushes and under the 
rocks there would be little flames, little flames . . . 
little flames as though from brimstone. I have seen 
them myself. Everyone expected that Yefim would 
show people the places or dig the treasure up him- 
self, but he — as the saying is, like a dog in the 
manger — so he died without digging it up himself 
or showing other people.” 


Happiness 257 

The overseer lit a pipe, and for an instant lighted 
up his big moustaches and his sharp, stern-looking, 
and dignified nose. Little circles of light danced 
from his hands to his cap, raced over the saddle 
along the horse’s back, and vanished in its mane 
near its ears. 

“ There are lots of hidden treasures in these 
parts,” he said. 

And slowly stretching, he looked round him, rest- 
ing his eyes on the whitening east and added: 

“ There must be treasures.” 

“ To be sure,” sighed the old man, “ one can see 
from every sign there are treasures, only there is 
no one to dig them, brother. No one knows the 
real places; besides, nowadays, you must remember, 
all the treasures are under a charm. To find them 
and see them you must have a talisman, and without 
a talisman you can do nothing, lad. Yefim had talis- 
mans, but there was no getting anything out of him, 
the bald devil. He kept them, so that no one could 
get them.” 

The young shepherd crept two paces nearer to 
the old man and, propping his head on his fists, 
fastened his fixed stare upon him. A childish ex- 
pression of terror and curiosity gleamed in his dark 
eyes, and seemed in the twilight to stretch and flat- 
ten out the large features of his coarse young face. 
He was listening intently. 

“ It is even written in the Scriptures that there 
are lots of treasures hidden here,” the old man 
went on; “it is so for sure . . . and no mistake 
about it. An old soldier of Novopavlovka was 


258 The Tales of Chekhov 

shown at Ivanovka a writing, and in this writing it 
was printed about the place of the treasure and even 
how many pounds of gold was in it and the sort 
of vessel it was in; they would have found the treas- 
ures long ago by that writing, only the treasure is 
under a spell, you can’t get at it.” 

“Why can’t you get at it, grandfather?” asked 
the young man. 

“ I suppose there is some reason, the soldier didn’t 
say. It is under a spell . . . you need a talisman.” 

The old man spoke with warmth, as though he 
were pouring out his soul before the overseer. He 
talked through his nose and, being unaccustomed to 
talk much and rapidly, stuttered; and, conscious of 
his defects, he tried to adorn his speech with gesticu- 
lations of the hands and head and thin shoulders, 
and at every movement his hempen shirt crumpled 
into folds, slipped upwards and displayed his back, 
black with age and sunburn. He kept pulling it 
down, but it slipped up again at once. At last, as 
though driven out of all patience by the rebellious 
shirt, the old man leaped up and said bitterly: 

“ There is fortune, but what is the good of it 
if it is buried in the earth? It is just riches wasted 
with no profit to anyone, like chaff or sheep’s dung, 
and yet there are riches there, lad, fortune enough 
for all the country round, but not a soul sees it! 
It will come to this, that the gentry will dig it up 
or the government will take it away. The gentry 
have begun digging the barrows. . . . They scented 
something ! They are envious of the peasants’ luck ! 
The government, too, is looking after itself. It is 


Happiness 259 

written in the law that if any peasant finds the treas- 
ure he is to take it to the authorities! I dare say, 
wait till you get it! There is a brew but not for 
you ! ” 

The old man laughed contemptuously and sat 
down on the ground. The overseer listened with 
attention and agreed, but from his silence and the 
expression of his figure it was evident that what the 
old man told him was not new to him, that he had 
thought it all over long ago, and knew much more 
than was known to the old shepherd. 

“ In my day, I must own, I did seek for fortune 
a dozen times,” said the old man, scratching himself 
nervously. “ I looked in the right places, but I 
must have come on treasures under a charm. My 
father looked for it, too, and my brother, too — 
but not a thing did they find, so they died without 
luck. A monk revealed to my brother Ilya — the 
Kingdom of Heaven be his — that in one place in 
the fortress of Taganrog there was a treasure under 
three stones, and that that treasure was under a 
charm, and in those days — it was, I remember, in 
the year ’38 — an Armenian used to live at Matv- 
yeev Barrow who sold talismans. Ilya bought a 
talisman, took two other fellows with him, and went 
to Taganrog. Only when he got to the place in 
the fortress, brother, there was a soldier with a gun, 
standing at the very spot. . . .” 

A sound suddenly broke on the still air, and 
floated in all directions over the steppe. Some- 
thing in the distance gave a menacing bang, crashed 
against stone, and raced over the steppe, uttering, 


26 o 


The Tales of Chekhov 


“ Tah ! tah ! tah ! tah ! ” When the sound had died 
away the old man looked inquiringly at Panteley, 
who stood motionless and unconcerned. 

“ It’s a bucket broken away at the pits,” said 
the young shepherd after a moment’s thought. 

It was by now getting light. The Milky Way 
had turned pale and gradually melted like snow, 
losing its outlines; the sky was becoming dull and 
dingy so that you could not make out whether it 
was clear or covered thickly with clouds, and only 
from the bright leaden streak in the east and from 
the stars that lingered here and there could one 
tell what was coming. 

The first noiseless breeze of morning, cautiously 
stirring the spurges and the brown stalks of last 
year’s grass, fluttered along the road. 

The overseer roused himself from his thoughts 
and tossed his head. With both hands he shook 
the saddle, touched the girth and, as though he could 
not make up his mind to mount the horse, stood still 
again, hesitating. 

“Yes,” he said, “your elbow is near, but you 
can’t bite it. There is fortune, but there is not 
the wit to find it.” 

And he turned facing the shepherds. His stern 
face looked sad and mocking, as though he were 
a disappointed man. 

“ Yes, so one dies without knowing what happi- 
ness is like . . .” he said emphatically, lifting his 
left leg into the stirrup. “ A younger man may live 
to see it, but it is time for us to lay aside all thought 
of it.” 


Happiness 261 

Stroking his long moustaches covered with dew, 
he seated himself heavily on the horse and screwed 
up his eyes, looking into the distance, as though 
he had forgotten something or left something un- 
said. In the bluish distance where the furthest vis- 
ible hillock melted into the mist nothing was stirring; 
the ancient barrows, once watch-mounds and tombs, 
which rose here and there above the horizon and the 
boundless steppe had a sullen and death-like look; 
there was a feeling of endless time and utter indiffer- 
ence to man in their immobility and silence ; another 
thousand years would pass, myriads of men would 
die, while they would still stand as they had stood, 
with no regret for the dead nor interest in the living, 
and no soul would ever know why they stood there, 
and what secret of the steppes was hidden under 
them. 

The rooks awakening, flew one after another in 
silence over the earth. No meaning was to be seen 
in the languid flight of those long-lived birds, nor in 
the morning which is repeated punctually every 
twenty-four hours, nor in the boundless expanse of 
the steppe. 

The overseer smiled and said: 

“What space, Lord have mercy upon us! You 
would have a hunt to find treasure in it! Here,” 
he went on, dropping his voice and making a serious 
face, “ here there are two treasures buried for a 
certainty. The gentry don’t know of them, but the 
old peasants, particularly the soldiers, know all about 
them. Here, somewhere on that ridge [the overseer 
pointed with his whip] robbers one time attacked 


262 


The Tales of Chekhov 


a caravan of gold; the gold was being taken from 
Petersburg to the Emperor Peter who was building 
a fleet at the time at Voronezh. The robbers killed 
the men with the caravan and buried the gold, but 
did not find it again afterwards. Another treasure 
was buried by our Cossacks of the Don. In the year 
’ 1 2 they carried off lots of plunder of all sorts from 
the French, goods and gold and silver. When they 
were going homewards they heard on the way that 
the government wanted to take away all the gold 
and silver from them. Rather than give up their 
plunder like that to the government for nothing, the 
brave fellows took and buried it, so that their chil- 
dren, anyway, might get it; but where they buried 
it no one knows.” 

“ I have heard of those treasures,” the old man 
muttered grimly. 

“ Yes . . .” Panteley pondered again. “ So it 
is. . . .” 

A silence followed. The overseer looked dream- 
ily into the distance, gave a laugh and pulled the 
rein, still with the same expression as though he had 
forgotten something or left something unsaid. The 
horse reluctantly started at a walking pace. After 
riding a hundred paces Panteley shook his head 
resolutely, roused himself from his thoughts and, 
lashing his horse, set off at a trot. 

The shepherds were left alone. 

“ That was Panteley from Makarov’s estate,” 
said the old man. “ He gets a hundred and fifty 
a year and provisions found, too. He is a man of 
education. ...” 


Happiness 263 

The sheep, waking up — there were about three 
thousand of them — began without zest to while 
away the time, nipping at the low, half-trampled 
grass. The sun had not yet risen, but by now all 
the barrows could be seen and, like a cloud in the 
distance, Saur’s Grave with its peaked top. If one 
clambered up on that tomb one could see the plain 
from it, level and boundless as the sky, one could 
see villages, manor-houses, the settlements of the 
Germans and of the Molokani, and a long-sighted 
Kalmuck could even see the town and the railway- 
station. Only from there could one see that there 
was something else in the world besides the silent 
steppe and the ancient barrows, that there was an- 
other life that had nothing to do with buried treas- 
ure and the thoughts of sheep. 

The old man felt beside him for his crook — a 
long stick with a hook at the upper end — and got 
up. He was silent and thoughtful. The young 
shepherd’s face had not lost the look of childish 
terror and curiosity. He was still under the influ- 
ence of what he had heard in the night, and impa- 
tiently awaiting fresh stories. 

“ Grandfather,” he asked, getting up and taking 
his crook, “ what did your brother Ilya do with the 
soldier? ” 

The old man did not hear the question. He 
looked absent-mindedly at the young man, and an- 
swered, mumbling with his lips : 

“ I keep thinking, Sanka, about that writing that 
was shown to that soldier at Ivanovka. I didn’t 
tell Panteley — God be with him — but you know 


264 The Tales of Chekhov 

in that writing the place was marked out so that 
even a woman could find it. Do you know where 
it is? At Bogata Bylotchka at the spot, you know, 
where the ravine parts like a goose’s foot into three 
little ravines; it is the middle one.” 

“Well, will you dig?” 

“ I will try my luck . . .” 

“ And, grandfather, what will you do with the 
treasure when you find it? ” 

“Do with it?” laughed the old man. “H’m! 
. . . If only I could find it then. ... I would show 
them all. . . . H’m! ... I should know what to 
do. . . .” 

And the old man could not answer what he would 
do with the treasure if he found it. That question 
had presented itself to him that morning probably 
for the first time in his life, and judging from the 
expression of his face, indifferent and uncritical, it 
did not seem to him important and deserving of 
consideration. In Sanka’s brain another puzzled 
question was stirring: why was it only old men 
searched for hidden treasure, and what was the use 
of earthly happiness to people who might die any 
day of old age? But Sanka could not put this per- 
plexity into words, and the old man could scarcely 
have found an answer to it. 

An immense crimson sun came into view sur- 
rounded by a faint haze. Broad streaks of light, 
still cold, bathing in the dewy grass, lengthening out 
with a joyous air as though to prove they were not 
weary of their task, began spreading over the earth. 
The silvery wormwood, the blue flowers of the pig’s 


Happiness 265 

onion, the yellow mustard, the corn-flowers — all 
burst into gay colours, taking the sunlight for their 
own smile. 

The old shepherd and Sanka parted and stood 
at the further sides of the flock. Both stood like 
posts, without moving, staring at the ground and 
thinking. The former was haunted by thoughts of 
fortune, the latter was pondering on what had been 
said in the night; what interested him was not the 
fortune itself, which he did not want and could not 
imagine, but the fantastic, fairy-tale character of 
human happiness. 

A hundred sheep started and, in some inexplicable 
panic as at a signal, dashed away from the flock; 
and as though the thoughts of the sheep — tedious 
and oppressive — had for a moment infected Sanka 
also, he, too, dashed aside in the same inexplicable 
animal panic, but at once he recovered himself and 
shouted : 

“ You crazy creatures ! You’ve gone mad, plague 
take you ! ” 

When the sun, promising long hours of over- 
whelming heat, began to bake the earth, all living 
things that in the night had moved and uttered 
sounds were sunk in drowsiness. The old shepherd 
and Sanka stood with their crooks on opposite sides 
of the flock, stood without stirring, like fakirs at 
their prayers, absorbed in thought. They did not 
heed each other; each of them was living in his own 
life. The sheep were pondering, too. 



A MALEFACTOR 





A MALEFACTOR 


An exceedingly lean little peasant, in a striped 
hempen shirt and patched drawers, stands facing 
the investigating magistrate. His face overgrown 
with hair and pitted with smallpox, and his eyes 
scarcely visible under thick, overhanging eyebrows 
have an expression of sullen moroseness. On his 
head there is a perfect mop of tangled, unkempt 
hair, which gives him an even more spider-like air 
of moroseness. He is barefooted. 

“ Denis Grigoryev ! ” the magistrate begins. 
“ Come nearer, and answer my questions. On the 
seventh of this July the railway watchman, Ivan 
Semyonovitch Akinfov, going along the line in the 
morning, found you at the hundred-and-forty-first 
mile engaged in unscrewing a nut by which the rails 
are made fast to the sleepers. Here it is, the nut! 
. . . With the aforesaid nut he detained you. Was 
that so? ” 

14 Wha-at?” 

“ Was this all as Akinfov states? ” 

“ To be sure, it was.” 

“ Very good; well, what were you unscrewing the 
nut for?” 

“ Wha-at?” 

“ Drop that ‘wha-at’ and answer the question; 
what were you unscrewing the nut for? ” 

269 


The Tales of Chekhov 


270 

“ If I hadn’t wanted it I shouldn’t have un- 
screwed it,” croaks Denis, looking at the ceiling. 

“ What did you want that nut for? ” 

“ The nut? We make weights out of those nuts 
for our lines.” 

“ Who is ‘we’?” 

“ We, people. . . . The Klimovo peasants, that 
is.” 

“ Listen, my man; don’t play the idiot to me, but 
speak sensibly. It’s no use telling lies here about 
weights ! ” 

“ I’ve never been a liar from a child, and now 
I’m telling lies . . .” mutters Denis, blinking. 
“ But can you do without a weight, your honour? 
If you put live bait or maggots on a hook, would 
it go to the bottom without a weight? ... I am 
telling lies,” grins Denis. . . . “ What the devil is 
the use of the worm if it swims on the surface! 
The perch and the pike and the eel-pout always 
go to the bottom, and a bait on the surface is only 
taken by a shillisper, not very often then, and there 
are no shillispers in our river. . . . That fish likes 
plenty of room.” 

“Why are you telling me about shillispers?” 

“ Wha-at? Why, you asked me yourself! The 
gentry catch fish that way too in our parts. The 
silliest little boy would not try to catch a fish with- 
out a weight. Of course anyone who did not under- 
stand might go to fish without a weight. There is 
no rule for a fool.” 

“ So you say you unscrewed this nut to make a 
weight for your fishing line out of it? ” 


A Malefactor 


271 

“ What else for? It wasn’t to play knuckle-bones 
with ! ” 

“ But you might have taken lead, a bullet ... a 
nail of some sort. . . .” 

“ You don’t pick up lead in the road, you have 
to buy it, and a nail’s no good. You can’t find any- 
thing better than a nut. . . . It’s heavy, and there’s 
a hole in it.” 

“ He keeps pretending to be a fool ! as though 
he’d been born yesterday or dropped from heaven! 
Don’t you understand, you blockhead, what un- 
screwing these nuts leads to? If the watchman 
had not noticed it the train might have run off the 
rails, people would have been killed — you would 
have killed people.” 

“ God forbid, your honour ! What should I kill 
them for? Are we heathens or wicked people? 
Thank God, good gentlemen, we have lived all our 
lives without ever dreaming of such a thing. . . . 
Save, and have mercy on us, Queen of Heaven ! . . . 
What are you saying? ” 

“ And what do you suppose railway accidents do 
come from? Unscrew two or three nuts and you 
have an accident.” 

Denis grins, and screws up his eye at the magis- 
trate incredulously. 

“ Why ! how many years have we all in the vil- 
lage been unscrewing nuts, and the Lord has been 
merciful; and you talk of accidents, killing people. 
If I had carried away a rail or put a log across the 
line, say, then maybe it might have upset the train, 
but . . . pouf ! a nut ! ” 


The Tales of Chekhov 


272 

“ But you must understand that the nut holds the 
rail fast to the sleepers ! ” 

“ We understand that. . . . We don’t unscrew 
them all . . . we leave some. . . . We don’t do 
it thoughtlessly ... we understand. . . .” 

Denis yawns and makes the sign of the cross over 
his mouth. 

“ Last year the train went off the rails here,” says 
the magistrate. “ Now I see why! ” 

“ What do you say, your honour? ” 

“ I am telling you that now I see why the train 
went off the rails last year. ... I understand! ” 

“ That’s what you are educated people for, to 
understand, you kind gentlemen. The Lord knows 
to whom to give understanding. . . . Here you 
have reasoned how and what, but the watchman, a 
peasant like ourselves, with no understanding at all, 
catches one by the collar and hauls one along. . . . 
You should reason first and then haul me off. It’s 
a saying that a peasant has a peasant’s wit. . . . 
Write down, too, your honour, that he hit me twice 
— in the jaw and in the chest.” 

“ When your hut was searched they found an- 
other nut. ... At what spot did you unscrew that, 
and when? ” 

“ You mean the nut which lay under the red 
box?” 

“ I don’t know where it was lying, only it was 
found. When did you unscrew it? ” 

“ I didn’t unscrew it; Ignashka, the son of one- 
eyed Semyon, gave it me. I mean the one which 
was under the box, but the one which was in the 


A Malefactor 


^73 

sledge in the yard Mitrofan and I unscrewed to- 
gether.” 

“ What Mitrofan? ” 

“ Mitrofan Petrov. . . . Haven’t you heard of 
him? He makes nets in our village and sells them 
to the gentry. He needs a lot of those nuts. 
Reckon a matter of ten for each net.” 

‘‘Listen. Article 1081 of the Penal Code lays 
down that every wilful damage of the railway line 
committed when it can expose the traffic on that 
line to danger, and the guilty party knows that 
an accident must be caused by it . . . (Do you 
understand? Knows! And you could not help 
knowing what this unscrewing would lead to . . .) 
is liable to penal servitude.” 

“ Of course, you know best. . . . We are igno- 
rant people. . . . What do we understand?” 

“You understand all about it! You are lying, 
shamming ! ” 

“What should I lie for? Ask in the village if 
you don’t believe me. Only a bleak is caught with- 
out a weight, and there is no fish worse than a 
gudgeon, yet even that won’t bite without a weight.” 

“ You’d better tell me about the shillisper next,” 
said the magistrate, smiling. 

“ There are no shillispers in our parts. ... We 
cast our line without a weight on the top of the 
water with a butterfly; a mullet may be caught that 
way, though that is not often.” 

“ Come, hold your tongue.” 

A silence follows. Denis shifts from one foot to 
the other, looks at the table with the green cloth on 


The Tales of Chekhov 


274 

it, and blinks his eyes violently as though what was 
before him was not the cloth but the sun. The 
magistrate writes rapidly. 

“ Can I go? ” asks Denis after a long silence. 

“ No. I must take you under guard and send 
you to prison.” 

Denis leaves off blinking and, raising his thick 
eyebrows, looks inquiringly at the magistrate. 

“ How do you mean, to prison? Your honour! 
I have no time to spare, I must go to the fair; I 
must get three roubles from Yegor for some tal- 
low! . . 

“ Hold your tongue ; don’t interrupt.” 

“To prison. ... If there was something to go 
for, I’d go; but just to go for nothing! What for? 
I haven’t stolen anything, I believe, and I’ve not 
been fighting. ... If you are in doubt about the 
arrears, your honour, don’t believe the elder. . . . 
You ask the agent . . . he’s a regular heathen, the 
elder, you know.” 

“ Hold your tongue.” 

“ I am holding my tongue, as it is,” mutters Denis; 
“ but that the elder has lied over the account, I’ll 
take my oath for it. . . . There are three of us 
brothers: Kuzma Grigoryev, then Yegor Grigoryev, 
and me, Denis Grigoryev.” 

“You are hindering me. . . . Hey, Semyon,” 
cries the magistrate, “ take him away! ” 

“ There are three of us brothers,” mutters Denis, 
as two stalwart soldiers take him and lead him out 
of the room. “ A brother is not responsible for a 
brother. Kuzma does not pay, so you, Denis, must 


A Malefactor 


275 


answer for it. . . . Judges indeed! Our master 
the general is dead — the Kingdom of Heaven be 
his — or he would have shown you judges. . . . 
You ought to judge sensibly, not at random. . . . 
Flog if you like, but flog someone who deserves it, 
flog with conscience.” 



PEASANTS 




PEASANTS 


I 

Nikolay Tchikildyeev, a waiter in the Moscow 
hotel, Slavyansky Bazaar, was taken ill. His legs 
went numb and his gait was affected, so that on one 
occasion, as he was going along the corridor, he tum- 
bled and fell down with a tray full of ham and peas. 
He had to leave his job. All his own savings and 
his wife's were spent on doctors and medicines; they 
had nothing left to live upon. He felt dull with 
no work to do, and he made up his mind he must 
go home to the village. It is better to be ill at 
home, and living there is cheaper; and it is a true 
saying that the walls of home are a help. 

He reached Zhukovo towards evening. In his 
memories of childhood he had pictured his home as 
bright, snug, comfortable. Now, going into the hut, 
he was positively frightened; it was so dark, so 
crowded, so unclean. His wife Olga and his daugh- 
ter Sasha, who had come with him, kept looking in 
bewilderment at the big untidy stove, which filled 
up almost half the hut and was black with soot and 
flies. What lots of flies ! The stove was on one 
side, the beams lay slanting on the walls, and it 
looked as though the hut were just going to fall to 
pieces. In the corner, facing the door, under the 
279 


28 o 


The Tales of Chekhov 


holy images, bottle labels and newspaper cuttings 
were stuck on the walls instead of pictures. The 
poverty, the poverty ! Of the grown-up people there 
were none at home; all were at work at the harvest. 
On the stove was sitting a white-headed girl of 
eight, unwashed and apathetic; she did not even 
glance at them as they came in. On the floor a 
white cat was rubbing itself against the oven fork. 

“ Puss, puss! ” Sasha called to her. “ Puss! ” 

“She can’t hear,” said the little girl; “she has 
gone deaf.” 

“ How is that?” 

“ Oh, she was beaten.” 

Nikolay and Olga realized from the first glance 
what life was like here, but said nothing to one 
another; in silence they put down their bundles, 
and went out into the village street. Their hut 
was the third from the end, and seemed the very 
poorest and oldest-looking; the second was not much 
better; but the last one had an iron roof, and cur- 
tains in the windows. That hut stood apart, not 
enclosed; it was a tavern. The huts were in a sin- 
gle row, and the whole of the little village — quiet 
and dreamy, with willows, elders, and mountain-ash 
trees peeping out from the yards — had an attrac- 
tive look. 

Beyond the peasants’ homesteads there was a 
slope down to the river, so steep and precipitous 
that huge stones jutted out bare here and there 
through the clay. Down the slope, among the 
stones and holes dug by the potters, ran winding 
paths; bits of broken pottery, some brown, some 


Peasants 


281 

red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched 
a broad, level, bright green meadow, from which 
the hay had been already carried, and in which 
the peasants' cattle were wandering. The river, 
three-quarters of a mile from the village, ran twist- 
ing and turning, with beautiful leafy banks; beyond 
it was again a broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long 
strings of white geese; then, just as on the near side, 
a steep ascent uphill, and on the top of the hill a 
hamlet, and a church with five domes, and at a lit- 
tle distance the manor-house. 

44 It’s lovely here in your parts!” said Olga, 
crossing herself at the sight of the church. “ What 
space, oh Lord ! ” 

Just at that moment the bell began ringing for 
service (it was Saturday evening) . Two little girls, 
down below, who were dragging up a pail of wa- 
ter, looked round at the church to listen to the bell. 

44 At this time they are serving the dinners at the 
Slavyansky Bazaar,” said Nikolay dreamily. 

Sitting on the edge of the slope, Nikolay and 
Olga watched the sun setting, watched the gold and 
crimson sky reflected in the river, in the church win- 
dows, and in the whole air — which was soft and 
still and unutterably pure as it never was in Moscow. 
And when the sun had set the flocks and herds passed, 
bleating and lowing; geese flew across from the fur- 
ther side of the river, and all sank into silence; the 
soft light died away in the air, and the dusk of eve- 
ning began quickly moving down upon them. 

Meanwhile Nikolay’s father and mother, two 
gaunt, bent, toothless old people, just of the same 


282 


The Tales of Chekhov 


height, came back. The women — the sisters-in- 
law Marya and Fyokla — who had been working on 
the landowner’s estate beyond the river, arrived 
home, too. Marya, the wife of Nikolay’s brother 
Kiryak, had six children, and Fyokla, the wife of 
Nikolay’s brother Denis — who had gone for a sol- 
dier — had two; and when Nikolay, going into the 
hut, saw all the family, all those bodies big and little 
moving about on the lockers, in the hanging cradles 
and in all the corners, and when he saw the greed 
with which the old father and the women ate the 
black bread, dipping it in water, he realized he had 
made a mistake in coming here, sick, penniless, and 
with a family, too — a great mistake ! 

“ And where is Kiryak? ” he asked after they had 
exchanged greetings. 

“ He is in service at the merchant’s,” answered 
his father; “ a keeper in the woods. He is not a 
bad peasant, but too fond of his glass.” 

“ He is no great help ! ” said the old woman 
tearfully. “ Our men are a grievous lot; they bring 
nothing into the house, but take plenty out. Kiryak 
drinks, and so does the old man; it is no use hiding 
a sin; he knows his way to the tavern. The Heav- 
enly Mother is wroth.” 

In honour of the visitors they brought out the 
samovar. The tea smelt of fish; the sugar was grey 
and looked as though it had been nibbled; cock- 
roaches ran to and fro over the bread and among 
the crockery. It was disgusting to drink, and the 
conversation was disgusting, too — about nothing 
but poverty and illnesses. But before they had time 


Peasants 283 

to empty their first cups there came a loud, pro- 
longed, drunken shout from the yard: 

“ Ma-arya ! ” 

“ It looks as though Kiryak were coming,” said 
the old man. “ Speak of the devil.” 

All were hushed. And again, soon afterwards, 
the same shout, coarse and drawn-out as though it 
came out of the earth : 

“ Ma-arya ! ” 

Marya, the elder sister-in-law, turned pale and 
huddled against the stove, and it was strange to 
see the look of terror on the face of the strong, 
broad-shouldered, ugly woman. Her daughter, the 
child who had been sitting on the stove and looked so 
apathetic, suddenly broke into loud weeping. 

“What are you howling for, you plague?” 
Fyokla, a handsome woman, also strong and broad- 
shouldered, shouted to her. “ He won’t kill you, 
no fear ! ” 

From his old father Nikolay learned that Marya 
was afraid to live in the forest with Kiryak, and 
that when he was drunk he always came for her, 
made a row, and beat her mercilessly. 

“ Ma-arya ! ” the shout sounded close to the door. 

“Protect me, for Christ’s sake, good people!” 
faltered Marya, breathing as though she had been 
plunged into very cold water. “ Protect me, kind 
people. . . .” 

All the children in the hut began crying, and 
looking at them, Sasha, too, began to cry. They 
heard a drunken cough, and a tall, black-bearded 
peasant wearing a winter cap came into the hut, 


284 The Tales of Chekhov 

and was the more terrible because his face could 
not be seen in the dim light of the little lamp. It 
was Kiryak. Going up to his wife, he swung his 
arm and punched her in the face with his fist. 
Stunned by the blow, she did not utter a sound, 
but sat down, and her nose instantly began bleeding. 

“What a disgrace! What a disgrace!’’ mut- 
tered the old man, clambering up on to the stove. 
“ Before visitors, too! It’s a sin! ” 

The old mother sat silent, bowed, lost in thought; 
Fyokla rocked the cradle. 

Evidently conscious of inspiring fear, and pleased 
at doing so, Kiryak seized Marya by the arm, 
dragged her towards the door, and bellowed like 
an animal in order to seem still more terrible ; but 
at that moment he suddenly caught sight of the visi- 
tors and stopped. 

“ Oh, they have come, . . he said, letting his 
wife go; “ my own brother and his family. . . 

Staggering and opening wide his red, drunken eyes, 
he said his prayer before the image and went on : 

“ My brother and his family have come to the 
parental home . . . from Moscow, I suppose. 
The great capital Moscow, to be sure, the mother 
of cities. . . . Excuse me.” 

He sank down on the bench near the samovar 
and began drinking tea, sipping it loudly from the 
saucer in the midst of general silence. . . . He 
drank off a dozen cups, then reclined on the bench 
and began snoring. 

They began going to bed. Nikolay, as an in- 
valid, was put on the stove with his old father; 


Peasants 285 

Sasha lay down on the floor, while Olga went with 
the other women into the barn. 

“ Aye, aye, dearie,” she said, lying down on the 
hay beside Marya; “you won’t mend your trouble 
with tears. Bear it in patience, that is all. It is 
written in the Scriptures: ‘If anyone smite thee 
on the right cheek, offer him the left one also.’ . . . 
Aye, aye, dearie.” 

Then in a low singsong murmur she told them 
about Moscow, about her own life, how she had been 
a servant in furnished lodgings. 

“And in Moscow the houses are big, built of 
brick,” she said; “ and there are ever so many 
churches, forty times forty, dearie; and they are 
all gentry in the houses, so handsome and so pro- 
per ! ” 

Marya told her that she had not only never been 
in Moscow, but had not even been in their own 
district town; she could not read or write, and knew 
no prayers, not even “ Our Father.” Both she and 
Fyokla, the other sister-in-law, who was sitting a 
little way off listening, were extremely ignorant and 
could understand nothing. They both disliked their 
husbands; Marya was afraid of Kiryak, and when- 
ever he stayed with her she was shaking with fear, 
and always got a. headache from the fumes of vodka 
and tobacco with which he reeked. And in answer 
to the question whether she did not miss her hus- 
band, Fyokla answered with vexation: 

“Miss him!” 

They talked a little and sank into silence. 

It was cool, and a cock crowed at the top of his 


286 The Tales of Chekhov 

voice near the barn, preventing them from sleeping. 
When the bluish morning light was already peeping 
through all the crevices, Fyokla got up stealthily 
and went out, and then they heard the sound of her 
bare feet running off somewhere. 

II 

Olga went to church, and took Marya with her. 
As they went down the path towards the meadow 
both were in good spirits. Olga liked the wide 
view, and Marya felt that in her sister-in-law she 
had someone near and akin to her. The sun was 
rising. Low down over the meadow floated a 
drowsy hawk. The river looked gloomy; there was 
a haze hovering over it here and there, but on the 
further bank a streak of light already stretched 
across the hill. The church was gleaming, and in 
the manor garden the rooks were cawing furiously. 

“ The old man is all right,” Marya told her, u but 
Granny is strict; she is continually nagging. Our 
own grain lasted till Carnival. We buy flour now 
at the tavern. She is angry about it; she says we eat 
too much.” 

“ Aye, aye, dearie ! Bear it in patience, that is 
all. It is written: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that 
labour and are heavy laden.’ ” 

Olga spoke sedately, rhythmically, and she walked 
like a pilgrim woman, with a rapid, anxious step. 
Every day she read the gospel, read it aloud like a 
deacon; a great deal of it she did not understand, 
but the words of the gospel moved her to tears, 


Peasants 287 

and words like u forasmuch as ” and “ verily ” she 
pronounced with a sweet flutter at her heart. She 
believed in God, in the Holy Mother, in the Saints; 
she believed one must not offend anyone in the world 
not simple folks, nor Germans, nor gypsies, nor 
Jews — and woe even to those who have no com- 
passion on the beasts. She believed this was written 
in the Holy Scriptures; and so, when she pronounced 
phrases from Holy Writ, even though she did not 
understand them, her face grew softened, compas- 
sionate, and radiant. 

“ What part do you come from? ” Marya asked 
her. 

“ I am from Vladimir. Only I was taken to 
Moscow long ago, when I was eight years old.” 

They reached the river. On the further side a 
woman was standing at the water’s edge, undress- 
ing. 

“ It’s our Fyokla,” said Marya, recognizing her. 
“ She has been over the river to the manor yard. 
To the stewards. She is a shameless hussy and foul- 
mouthed — fearfully ! ” 

Fyokla, young and vigorous as a girl, with her 
black eyebrows and her loose hair, jumped off the 
bank and began splashing the water with her feet, 
and waves ran in all directions from her. 

“Shameless — dreadfully!” repeated Marya. 

The river was crossed by a rickety little bridge of 
logs, and exactly below it in the clear, limpid water 
was a shoal of broad-headed mullets. The dew was 
glistening on the green bushes that looked into the 
water. There was a feeling of warmth ; it was com- 


288 


The Tales of Chekhov 


forting! What a lovely morning! And how 
lovely life would have been in this world, in all like- 
lihood, if it were not for poverty, horrible, hopeless 
poverty, from which one can find no refuge ! One 
had only to look round at the village to remember 
vividly all that had happened the day before, and 
the illusion of happiness which seemed to surround 
them vanished instantly. 

They reached the church. Marya stood at the 
entrance, and did not dare to go farther. She did 
not dare to sit down either. Though they only be- 
gan ringing for mass between eight and nine, she 
remained standing the whole time. 

While the gospel was being read the crowd sud- 
denly parted to make way for the family from the 
great house. Two young girls in white frocks and 
wide-brimmed hats walked in; with them a chubby, 
rosy boy in a sailor suit. Their appearance touched 
Olga; she made up her mind from the first glance 
that they were refined, well-educated, handsome 
people. Marya looked at them from under her 
brows, sullenly, dejectedly, as though they were not 
human beings coming in, but monsters who might 
crush her if she did not make way for them. 

And every time the deacon boomed out something 
in his bass voice she fancied she heard “ Ma-arya ! ” 
and she shuddered. 

Ill 

The arrival of the visitors was already known in 
the village, and directly after mass a number of 
people gathered together in the hut. The Leonyt- 


Peasants 


289 

chcvs and Matvyeitchevs and the Ilyitchovs came to 
inquire about their relations who were in service in 
Moscow. All the lads of Zhukovo who could read 
and write were packed off to Moscow and hired out 
as butlers or waiters (while from the village on the 
other side of the river the boys all became bakers), 
and that had been the custom from the days of serf- 
dom long ago when a certain Luka Ivanitch, a peas- 
ant from Zhukovo, now a legendary figure, who had 
been a waiter in one of the Moscow clubs, would 
take none but his fellow-villagers into his service, 
and found jobs for them in taverns and restaurants; 
and from that time the village of Zhukovo was 
always called among the inhabitants of the surround- 
ing districts Slaveytown. Nikolay had been taken 
to Moscow when he was eleven, and Ivan Makar- 
itch, one of the Matvyeitchevs, at that time a head- 
waiter in the “ Hermitage ” garden, had put him 
into a situation. And now, addressing the 
Matvyeitchevs, Nikolay said emphatically: 

“ Ivan Makaritch was my benefactor, and I am 
bound to pray for him day and night, as it is owing 
to him I have become a good man.” 

“ My good soul! ” a tall old woman, the sister 
of Ivan Makaritch, said tearfully, “ and not a word 
have we heard about him, poor dear.” 

“ In the winter he was in service at Omon’s, and 
this season there was a rumour he was somewhere 
out of town, in gardens. . . . He has aged! In 
old days he would bring home as much as ten roubles 
a day in the summer-time, but now things are very 
quiet everywhere. The old man frets.” 


The Tales of Chekhov 


290 

The women looked at Nikolay’s feet, shod in felt 
boots, and at his pale face, and said mournfully: 

“ You are not one to get on, Nikolay Osipitch ; you 
are not one to get on ! No, indeed! ” 

And they all made much of Sasha. She was ten 
years old, but she was little and very thin, and might 
have been taken for no more than seven. Among 
the other little girls, with their sunburnt faces and 
roughly cropped hair, dressed in long faded smocks, 
she with her white little face, with her big dark eyes, 
with a red ribbon in her hair, looked funny, as 
though she were some little wild creature that had 
been caught and brought into the hut. 

“ She can read, too,” Olga said in her praise, 
looking tenderly at her daughter. “ Read a little, 
child! ” she said, taking the gospel from the corner. 
“You read, and the good Christian people will 
listen.” 

The testament was an old and heavy one in leather 
binding, with dog’s-eared edges, and it exhaled a 
smell as though monks had come into the hut. 
Sasha raised her eyebrows and began in a loud 
rhythmic chant : 

“ ‘ And the angel of the Lord . . . appeared 
unto Joseph, saying unto him: Rise up, and take 
the Babe and His mother.’ ” 

“ The Babe and His mother,” Olga repeated, and 
flushed all over with emotion. 

And flee into Egypt, . . . and tarry there un- 
til such time as . . .’ ” 

At the word “ tarry ” Olga could not refrain from 
tears. Looking at her, Marya began to whimper, 


Peasants 


291 

and after her Ivan Makaritch’s sister. The old 
father cleared his throat, and bustled about to find 
something to give his grand-daughter, but, finding 
nothing, gave it up with a wave of his hand. And 
when the reading was over the neighbours dispersed 
to their homes, feeling touched and very much 
pleased with Olga and Sasha. 

As it was a holiday, the family spent the whole 
day at home. The old woman, whom her husband, 
her daughters-in-law, her grandchildren all alike 
called Granny, tried to do everything herself; she 
heated the stove and set the samovar with her own 
hands, even waited at the midday meal, and then 
complained that she was worn out with work. And 
all the time she was uneasy for fear someone should 
eat a piece too much, or that her husband and 
daughters-in-law would sit idle. At one time she 
would hear the tavern-keeper’s geese going at the 
back of the huts to her kitchen-garden, and she 
would run out of the hut with a long stick and spend 
half an hour screaming shrilly by her cabbages, which 
were as gaunt and scraggy as herself; at another 
time she fancied that a crow had designs on her 
chickens, and she rushed to attack it with loud words 
of abuse. She was cross and grumbling from 
morning till night. And often she raised such an 
outcry that passers-by stopped in the street. 

She was not affectionate towards the old man, re- 
viling him as a lazy-bones and a plague. He was 
not a responsible, reliable peasant, and perhaps if 
she had not been continually nagging at him he would 
not have worked at all, but would have simply sat 


The Tales of Chekhov 


292 

on the stove and talked. He talked to his son at 
great length about certain enemies of his, com- 
plained of the insults he said he had to put up with 
every day from the neighbours, and it was tedious 
to listen to him. 

“ Yes,” he would say, standing with his arms 
akimbo, “ yes. ... A week after the Exaltation of 
the Cross I sold my hay willingly at thirty kopecks a 
pood. . . . Well and good. ... So you see I was 
taking the hay in the morning with a good will; I 
was interfering with no one. In an unlucky hour 
I see the village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, coming 
out of the tavern. 1 Where are you taking it, you 
ruffian? ’ says he, and takes me by the ear.” 

Kiryak had a fearful headache after his drinking 
bout, and was ashamed to face his brother. 

“What vodka does! Ah, my God!” he mut- 
tered, shaking his aching head. “ For Christ’s sake, 
forgive me, brother and sister; I’m not happy my- 
self.” 

As it was a holiday, they bought a herring at the 
tavern and made a soup of the herring’s head. At 
midday they all sat down to drink tea, and went on 
drinking it for a long time, till they were all perspir- 
ing; they looked positively swollen from the tea- 
drinking, and after it began sipping the broth from 
the herring’s head, all helping themselves out of one 
bowl. But the herring itself Granny had hidden. 

In the evening a potter began firing pots on the 
ravine. In the meadow below the girls got up a 
choral dance and sang songs. They played the con- 
certina. And on the other side of the river a kiln 


Peasants 


293 

for baking pots was lighted, too, and the girls sang 
songs, and in the distance the singing sounded soft 
and musical. The peasants were noisy in and about 
the tavern. They were singing with drunken voices, 
each on his own account, and swearing at one an- 
other, so that Olga could only shudder and say: 

“Oh, holy Saints ! ” 

She was amazed that the abuse was incessant, and 
those who were loudest and most persistent in this 
foul language were the old men who were so near 
their end. And the girls and children heard the 
swearing, and were not in the least disturbed by it, 
and it was evident that they were used to it from 
their cradles. 

It was past midnight, the kilns on both sides of 
the river were put out, but in the meadow below and 
in the tavern the merrymaking still went on. The 
old father and Kiryak, both drunk, walking arm- 
in-arm and jostling against each other’s shoulders, 
went to the barn where Olga and Marya were lying. 

“Let her alone,’’ the old man persuaded him; 
“ let her alone. . . . She is a harmless woman. 
. . . It’s a sin. . . .’’ 

“ Ma-arya ! ” shouted Kiryak. 

“ Let her be. . . . It’s a sin. . . . She is not a 
bad woman.’’ 

Both stopped by the barn and went on. 

“ I lo-ove the flowers of the fi-ield,” the old man 
began singing suddenly in a high, piercing tenor. 
“ I lo-ove to gather them in the meadows! ” 

Then he spat, and with a filthy oath went into the 
hut. 


294 


The Tales of Chekhov 


IV 

Granny put Sasha by her kitchen-garden and told 
her to keep watch that the geese did not go in. It 
was a hot August day. The tavernkeeper’s geese 
could make their way into the kitchen-garden by the 
backs of the huts, but now they were busily engaged 
picking up oats by the tavern, peacefully conversing 
together, and only the gander craned his head high 
as though trying to see whether the old woman were 
coming with her stick. The other geese might come 
up from below, but they were now grazing far away 
the other side of the river, stretched out in a long 
white garland about the meadow. Sasha stood 
about a little, grew weary, and, seeing that the geese 
were not coming, went away to the ravine. 

There she saw Marya’s eldest daughter Motka, 
who was standing motionless on a big stone, staring 
at the church. Marya had given birth to thirteen 
children, but she only had six living, all girls, not 
one boy, and the eldest was eight. Motka in a long 
smock was standing barefooted in the full sunshine; 
the sun was blazing down right on her head, but she 
did not notice that, and seemed as though turned to 
stone. Sasha stood beside her and said, looking at 
the church: 

“ God lives in the church. Men have lamps and 
candles, but God has little green and red and blue 
lamps like little eyes. At night God walks about the 
church, and with Him the Holy Mother of God and 
Saint Nikolay, thud, thud, thud! . . . And the 


Peasants 


295 

watchman is terrified, terrified! Aye, aye, dearie,’’ 
she added, imitating her mother. “ And when the 
end of the world comes all the churches will be car- 
ried up to heaven.” 

“ With the-ir be-ells? ” Motka asked in her deep 
voice, drawling every syllable. 

“ With their bells. And when the end of the 
world comes the good will go to Paradise, but the 
angry will burn in fire eternal and unquenchable, 
dearie. To my mother as well as to Marya God 
will say: ‘ You never offended anyone, and for that 
go to the right to Paradise ’ ; but to Kiryak and 
Granny He will say: 1 You go to the left into the 
fire.’ And anyone who has eaten meat in Lent will 
go into the fire, too.” 

She looked upwards at the sky, opening wide her 
eyes, and said : 

“ Look at the sky without winking, you will see 
angels.” 

Motka began looking at the sky, too, and a minute 
passed in silence. 

“ Do you see them? ” asked Sasha. 

“ I don’t,” said Motka in her deep voice. 

“ But I do. Little angels are flying about the sky 
and flap, flap with their little wings as though they 
were gnats.” 

Motka thought for a little, with her eyes on the 
ground, and asked: 

“Will Granny burn?” 

“ She will, dearie.” 

From the stone an even gentle slope ran down to 
the bottom, covered with soft green grass, which one 


296 The Tales of Chekhov 

longed to lie down on or to touch with one’s hands. 
. . . Sasha lay down and rolled to the bottom. 
Motka with a grave, severe face, taking a deep 
breath, lay down, too, and rolled to the bottom, and 
in doing so tore her smock from the hem to the 
shoulder. 

“ What fun it is ! ” said Sasha, delighted. 

They walked up to the top to roll down again, but 
at that moment they heard a shrill, familiar voice. 
Oh, how awful it was! Granny, a toothless, bony, 
hunchbacked figure, with short grey hair which was 
fluttering in the wind, was driving the geese out of 
the kitchen-garden with a long stick, shouting. 

“ They have trampled all the cabbages, the 
damned brutes ! I’d cut your throats, thrice accursed 
plagues ! Bad luck to you ! ” 

She saw the little girls, flung down the stick and 
picked up a switch, and, seizing Sasha by the neck 
with her fingers, thin and hard as the gnarled 
branches of a tree, began whipping her. Sasha cried 
with pain and terror, while the gander, waddling and 
stretching his neck, went up to the old woman and 
hissed at her, and when he went back to his flock 
all the geese greeted him approvingly with “ Ga- 
ga-ga ! ” Then Granny proceeded to whip Motka, 
and in this Motka’s smock was torn again. Feel- 
ing in despair, and crying loudly, Sasha went to the 
hut to complain. Motka followed her; she, too, 
was crying on a deeper note, without wiping her 
tears, and her face was as wet as though it had been 
dipped in water. 


Peasants 


297 

“Holy Saints!” cried Olga, aghast, as the two 
came into the hut. “ Queen of Heaven! ” 

Sasha began telling her story, while at the same 
time Granny walked in with a storm of shrill cries 
and abuse; then Fyokla flew into a rage, and there 
was an uproar in the hut. 

“Never mind, never mind!” Olga, pale and 
upset, tried to comfort them, stroking Sasha’s head. 
“She is your grandmother; it’s a sin to be angry 
with her. Never mind, my child.” 

Nikolay, who was worn out already by the ever- 
lasting hubbub, hunger, stifling fumes, filth, who 
hated and despised the poverty, who was ashamed 
for his wife and daughter to see his father and 
mother, swung his legs off the stove and said in an 
irritable, tearful voice, addressing his mother: 

“ You must not beat her! You have no right to 
beat her ! ” 

“ You lie rotting on the stove, you wretched crea- 
ture ! ” Fyokla shouted at him spitefully. “ The 
devil brought you all on us, eating us out of house 
and home.” 

Sasha and Motka and all the little girls in the hut 
huddled on the stove in the corner behind Nikolay’s 
back, and from that refuge listened in silent terror, 
and the beating of their little hearts could be dis- 
tinctly heard. Whenever there is someone in a fam- 
ily who has long been ill, and hopelessly ill, there 
come painful moments when all timidly, secretly, at 
the bottom of their hearts long for his death; and 
only the children fear the death of someone near 


298 The Tales of Chekhov 

them, and always feel horrified at the thought of it. 
And now the children, with bated breath, with a 
mournful look on their faces, gazed at Nikolay and 
thought that he was soon to die; and they wanted to 
cry and to say something friendly and compassionate 
to him. 

He pressed close to Olga, as though seeking pro- 
tection, and said to her softly in a quavering voice : 

“ Olya darling, I can’t stay here longer. It’s more 
than I can bear. For God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, 
write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna. Let her 
sell and pawn everything she has; let her send us the 
money. We will go away from here. Oh, Lord,” 
he went on miserably, “ to have one peep at Mos- 
cow! If I could see it in my dreams, the dear 
place ! ” 

And when the evening came on, and it was dark 
in the hut, it was so dismal that it was hard to utter 
a word. Granny, very ill-tempered, soaked some 
crusts of rye bread in a cup, and was a long time, a 
whole hour, sucking at them. Marya, after milking 
the cow, brought in a pail of milk and set it on a 
bench ; then Granny poured it from the pail into a jug 
just as slowly and deliberately, evidently pleased that 
it was now the Fast of the Assumption, so that no 
one would drink milk and it would be left untouched. 
And she only poured out a very little in a saucer for 
Fyokla’s baby. When Marya and she carried the 
jug down to the cellar Motka suddenly stirred, clam- 
bered down from the stove, and going to the bench 
where stood the wooden cup full of crusts, sprinkled 
into it some milk from the saucer. 


Peasants 


299 

Granny, coming back into the hut, sat down to her 
soaked crusts again, while Sasha and Motka, sitting 
on the stove, gazed at her, and they were glad that 
she had broken her fast and now would go to hell. 
They were comforted and lay down to sleep, and 
Sasha as she dozed off to sleep imagined the Day 
of Judgment: a huge fire was burning, somewhat like 
a potter’s kiln, and the Evil One, with horns like a 
cow’s, and black all over, was driving Granny into 
the fire with a long stick, just as Granny herself had 
been driving the geese. 


V 

On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, be- 
tween ten and eleven in the evening, the girls and 
lads who were merrymaking in the meadow sud- 
denly raised a clamour and outcry, and ran in the 
direction of the village; and those who were above 
on the edge of the ravine could not for the first mo- 
ment make out what was the matter. 

“Fire! Fire!’’ they heard desperate shouts 
from below. “ The village is on fire ! ’’ 

Those who were sitting above looked round, and 
a terrible and extraordinary spectacle met their eyes. 
On the thatched roof of one of the end cottages 
stood a column of flame, seven feet high, which 
curled round and scattered sparks in all directions 
as though it were a fountain. And all at once the 
whole roof burst into bright flame, and the crackling 
of the fire was audible. 


The Tales of Chekhov 


300 

The light of the moon was dimmed, and the whole 
village was by now bathed in a red quivering glow: 
black shadows moved over the ground, there was a 
smell of burning, and those who ran up from below 
were all gasping and could not speak for trembling; 
they jostled against each other, fell down, and they 
could hardly see in the unaccustomed light, and did 
not recognize each other. It was terrible. What 
seemed particularly dreadful was that doves were 
flying over the fire in the smoke; and in the tavern, 
where they did not yet know of the fire, they were 
still singing and playing the concertina as though 
there were nothing the matter. 

“ Uncle Semyon’s on fire,” shouted a loud, coarse 
voice. 

Marya was fussing about round her hut, weeping 
and wringing her hands, while her teeth chattered, 
though the fire was a long way off at the other end 
of the village. Nikolay came out in high felt boots, 
the children ran out in their little smocks. Near the 
village constable’s hut an iron sheet was struck. 
Boom, boom, boom! . . . floated through the air, 
and this repeated, persistent sound sent a pang to the 
heart and turned one cold. The old women stood 
with the holy ikons. Sheep, calves, cows were driven 
out of the back-yards into the street; boxes, sheep- 
skins, tubs were carried out. A black stallion, who 
was kept apart from the drove of horses because he 
kicked and injured them, on being set free ran once 
or twice up and down the village, neighing and paw- 
ing the ground; then suddenly stopped short near a 
cart and began kicking it with his hind-legs. 


Peasants 


301 

They began ringing the bells in the church on the 
other side of the river. 

Near the burning hut it was hot and so light that 
one could distinctly see every blade of grass. Sem- 
yon, a red-haired peasant with a long nose, wearing 
a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his 
ears, sat on one of the boxes which they had suc- 
ceeded in bringing out: his wife was lying on her 
face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of 
eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome — 
not one of the villagers, though obviously connected 
in some way with the fire — walked about bare- 
headed, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare 
was reflected on his bald head. The village elder, 
Antip Syedelnikov, as swarthy and black-haired as a 
gypsy, went up to the hut with an axe, and hacked out 
the windows one after another — no one knew why 
— then began chopping up the roof. 

“ Women, water! ” he shouted. “ Bring the en- 
gine ! Look sharp ! ” 

The peasants, who had been drinking in the tavern 
just before, dragged the engine up. They were all 
drunk; they kept stumbling and falling down, and all 
had a helpless expression and tears in their eyes. 

“Wenches, water! ” shouted the elder, who was 
drunk, too. “ Look sharp, wenches! ” 

The women and the girls ran downhill to where 
there was a spring, and kept hauling pails and 
buckets of water up the hill, and, pouring it into the 
engine, ran down again. Olga and Marya and 
Sasha and Motka all brought water. The women 
and the boys pumped the water; the pipe hissed, and 


302 The Tales of Chekhov 

the elder, directing it now at the door, now at the 
windows, held back the stream with his finger, which 
made it hiss more sharply still. 

“Bravo, Antip ! ” voices shouted approvingly. 
“ Do your best.” 

Antip went inside the hut into the fire and shouted 
from within. 

“ Pump ! Bestir yourselves, good Christian folk, 
in such a terrible mischance ! ” 

The peasants stood round in a crowd, doing noth- 
ing but staring at the fire. No one knew what to 
do, no one had the sense to do anything, though there 
were stacks of wheat, hay, barns, and piles of fag- 
gots standing all round. Kiryak and old Osip, his 
father, both tipsy, were standing there, too. And as 
though to justify his doing nothing, old Osip said, 
addressing the woman who lay on the ground : 

“ What is there to trouble about, old girl ! The 
hut is insured — why are you taking on? ” 

Semyon, addressing himself first to one person and 
then to another, kept describing how the fire had 
started. 

“ That old man, the one with the bundle, a house- 
serf of General Zhukov’s. . . . He was cook at our 
general’s, God rest his soul ! He came over this 
evening: ‘Let me stay the night,’ says he. . 
Well, we had a glass, to be sure. . . . The wife got 
the samovar — she was going to give the old fellow 
a cup of tea, and in an unlucky hour she set the 
samovar in the entrance. The sparks from the 
chimney must have blown straight up to the thatch; 
that’s how it was. We were almost burnt ourselves. 


Peasants 303 

And the old fellow’s cap has been burnt; what a 
shame ! ” 

And the sheet of iron was struck indefatigably, 
and the bells kept ringing in the church the other side 
of the river. In the glow of the fire Olga, breath- 
less, looking with horror at the red sheep and the 
pink doves flying in the smoke, kept running down 
the hill and up again. It seemed to her that the 
ringing went to her heart with a sharp stab, that the 
fire would never be over, that Sasha was lost. . . . 
And when the ceiling of the hut fell in with a crash, 
the thought that now the whole village would be 
burnt made her weak and faint, and she could not go 
on fetching water, but sat down on the ravine, set- 
ting the pail down near her; beside her and below 
her, the peasant women sat wailing as though at a 
funeral. 

Then the stewards and watchmen from the estate 
the other side of the river arrived in two carts, 
bringing with them a fire-engine. A very young stu- 
dent in an unbuttoned white tunic rode up on horse- 
back. There was the thud of axes. They put a 
ladder to the burning framework of the house, and 
five men ran up it at once. Foremost of them all 
was the student, who was red in the face and shout- 
ing in a harsh hoarse voice, and in a tone as though 
putting out fires was a thing he was used to. They 
pulled the house to pieces, a beam at a time; they 
dragged away the corn, the hurdles, and the stacks 
that were near. 

“ Don’t let them break it up ! ” cried stern voices 
in the crowd. “ Don’t let them.” 


The Tales of Chekhov 


304 

Kiryak made his way up to the hut with a resolute 
air, as though he meant to prevent the newcomers 
from breaking up the hut, but one of the workmen 
turned him back with a blow in his neck. There was 
the sound of laughter, the workman dealt him an- 
other blow, Kiryak fell down, and crawled back into 
the crowd on his hands and knees. 

Two handsome girls in hats, probably the student’s 
sisters, came from the other side of the river. They 
stood a little way off, looking at the fire. The beams 
that had been dragged apart were no longer burning, 
but were smoking vigorously; the student, who was 
working the hose, turned the water, first on the 
beams, then on the peasants, then on the women who 
were bringing the water. 

“ George ! ” the girls called to him reproachfully 
in anxiety, “ George ! ” 

The fire was over. And only when they began to 
disperse they noticed that the day was breaking, that 
everyone was pale and rather dark in the face, as it 
always seems in the early morning when the last stars 
are going out. As they separated, the peasants 
laughed and made jokes about General Zhukov’s 
cook and his cap which had been burnt; they already 
wanted to turn the fire into a joke, and even seemed 
sorry that it had so soon been put out. 

“ How well you extinguished the fire, sir! ” said 
Olga to the student. “ You ought to come to us in 
Moscow : there we have a fire every day.” 

“ Why, do you come from Moscow? ” asked one 
of the young ladies. 

“ Yes, miss. My husband was a waiter at the 


Peasants 


305 

Slavyansky Bazaar. And this is my daughter,” she 
said, indicating Sasha, who was cold and huddling 
up to her. “ She is a Moscow girl, too.” 

The two young ladies said something in French 
to the student, and he gave Sasha a twenty-kopeck 
piece. 

Old Father Osip saw this, and there was a gleam 
of hope in his face. 

“ We must thank God, your honour, there was no 
wind,” he said, addressing the student, “ or else we 
should have been all burnt up together. Your 
honour, kind gentlefolks,” he added in embarrass- 
ment in a lower tone, “ the morning’s chilly . . . 
something to warm one . . . half a bottle to your 
honour’s health.” 

Nothing was given him, and clearing his throat he 
slouched home. Olga stood afterwards at the end 
of the street and watched the two carts crossing the 
river by the ford and the gentlefolks walking across 
the meadow; a carriage was waiting for them the 
other side of the river. Going into the hut, she de- 
scribed to her husband with enthusiasm: 

“Such good people! And so beautiful! The 
young ladies were like cherubim.” 

“ Plague take them! ” Fyokla, sleepy, said spite- 
fully. 

VI 

Marya thought herself unhappy, and said that 
she would be very glad to die; Fyokla, on the other 
hand, found all this life to her taste: the poverty, 
the uncleanliness, and the incessant quarrelling. 


306 The Tales of Chekhov 

She ate what was given her without discrimination; 
slept anywhere, on whatever came to hand. She 
would empty the slops just at the porch, would splash 
them out from the doorway, and then walk barefoot 
through the puddle. And from the very first day she 
took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just because they 
did not like this life. 

“ We shall see what you’ll find to eat here, you 
Moscow gentry ! ” she said malignantly. “We shall 
see ! ’’ 

One morning, it was at the beginning of Septem- 
ber, Fyokla, vigorous, good-looking, and rosy from 
the cold, brought up two pails of water; Marya and 
Olga were sitting meanwhile at the table drinking 
tea. 

“ Tea and sugar,” said Fyokla sarcastically. 
“The fine ladies!” she added, setting down the 
pails. “ You have taken to the fashion of tea every 
day. You better look out that you don’t burst with 
your tea-drinking,” she went on, looking with hatred 
at Olga. “ That’s how you have come by your fat 
mug, having a good time in Moscow, you lump of 
flesh ! ” She swung the yoke and hit Olga such a 
blow on the shoulder that the two sisters-in-law could 
only clasp their hands and say: 

“Oh, holy Saints!” 

Then Fyokla went down to the river to wash the 
clothes, swearing all the time so loudly that she could 
be heard in the hut. 

The day passed and was followed by the long 
autumn evening. They wound silk in the hut; every- 
one did it except Fyokla; she had gone over the 


Peasants 


307 

river. They got the silk from a factory close by, 
and the whole family working together earned next 
to nothing, twenty kopecks a week. 

“ Things were better in the old days under the 
gentry,” said the old father as he wound silk. 
“You worked and ate and slept, everything in its 
turn. At dinner you had cabbage-soup and boiled 
grain, and at supper the same again. Cucumbers 
and cabbage in plenty: you could eat to your heart’s 
content, as much as you wanted. And there was 
more strictness. Everyone minded what he was 
about.” 

The hut was lighted by a single little lamp, 
which burned dimly and smoked. When someone 
screened the lamp and a big shadow fell across the 
window, the bright moonlight could be seen. Old 
Osip, speaking slowly, told them how they used to 
live before the emancipation; how in those very 
parts, where life was now so poor and so dreary, 
they used to hunt with harriers, greyhounds, re- 
trievers, and when they went out as beaters the peas- 
ants were given vodka; how whole waggonloads of 
game used to be sent to Moscow for the young mas- 
ters; how the bad were beaten with rods or sent 
away to the Tver estate, while the good were re- 
warded. And Granny told them something, too. 
She remembered everything, positively everything. 
She described her mistress, a kind, God-fearing 
woman, whose husband was a profligate and a rake, 
and all of whose daughters made unlucky marriages: 
one married a drunkard, another married a work- 
man, the other eloped secretly (Granny herself,' at 


308 The Tales of Chekhov 

that time a young girl, helped in the elopement) , and 
they had all three as well as their mother died early 
from grief. And remembering all this, Granny posi- 
tively began to shed tears. 

All at once someone knocked at the door, and 
they all started. 

“ Uncle Osip, give me a night’s lodging.” 

The little bald old man, General Zhukov’s cook, 
the one whose cap had been burnt, walked in. He 
sat down and listened, then he, too, began telling 
stories of all sorts. Nikolay, sitting on the stove 
with his legs hanging down, listened and asked ques- 
tions about the dishes that were prepared in the old 
days for the gentry. They talked of rissoles, cut- 
lets, various soups and sauces, and the cook, who 
remembered everything very well, mentioned dishes 
that are no longer served. There was one, for in- 
stance — a dish made of bulls’ eyes, which was called 
44 waking up in the morning.” 

44 And used you to do cutlets a la marechal? ” 
asked Nikolay. 

44 No.” 

Nikolay shook his head reproachfully and said: 

44 Tut, tut! You were not much of a cook! ” 

The little girls sitting and lying on the stove 
stared down without blinking; it seemed as though 
there were a great many of them, like cherubim 
in the clouds. They liked the stories: they were 
breathless; they shuddered and turned pale with 
alternate rapture and terror, and they listened 
breathlessly, afraid to stir, to Granny, whose stories 
were the most interesting of all. 


Peasants 


309 

They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old 
people, troubled and excited by their reminiscences, 
thought how precious was youth, of which, what- 
ever it might have been like, nothing was left in 
the memory but what was living, joyful, touching, 
and how terribly cold was death, which was not far 
off, better not think of it! The lamp died down. 
And the dusk, and the two little windows sharply 
defined by the moonlight, and the stillness and the 
creak of the cradle, reminded them for some reason 
that life was over, that nothing one could do would 
bring it back. ... You doze off, you forget your- 
self, and suddenly someone touches your shoulder 
or breathes on your cheek — and sleep is gone; your 
body feels cramped, and thoughts of death keep 
creeping into your mind. You turn on the other 
side: death is forgotten, but old dreary, sickening 
thoughts of poverty, of food, of how dear flour is 
getting, stray through the mind, and a little later 
again you remember that life is over and you can- 
not bring it back. . . . 

“ Oh, Lord! ” sighed the cook. 

Someone gave a soft, soft tap at the window. 
It must be Fyokla come back. Olga got up, and 
yawning and whispering a prayer, opened the door, 
then drew the bolt in the outer room, but no one 
came in; only from the street came a cold draught 
and a sudden brightness from the moonlight. The 
street, still and deserted, and the moon itself float- 
ing across the sky, could be seen at the open door. 

“Who is there?” called Olga. 

“ I,” she heard the answer — “ it is I.” 


310 The Tales of Chekhov 

Near the door, crouching against the wall, stood 
Fyokla, absolutely naked. She was shivering with 
cold, her teeth were chattering, and in the bright 
moonlight she looked very pale, strange, and beau- 
tiful. The shadows on her, and the bright moon- 
light on her skin, stood out vividly, and her dark 
eyebrows and firm, youthful bosom were defined with 
peculiar distinctness. 

“ The ruffians over there undressed me and turned 
me out like this,” she said. “ I’ve come home with- 
out my clothes . . . naked as my mother bore me. 
Bring me something to put on.” 

“ But go inside ! ” Olga said softly, beginning to 
shiver, too. 

“ I don’t want the old folks to see.” Granny 
was, in fact, already stirring and muttering, and 
the old father asked: “Who is there?” Olga 
brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla, 
and then both went softly into the inner room, try- 
ing not to make a noise with the door. 

“ Is that you, you sleek one? ” Granny grumbled 
angrily, guessing who it was. “ Fie upon you, night- 
walker ! . . . Bad luck to you ! ” 

“ It’s all right, it’s all right,” whispered Olga, 
wrapping Fyokla up; “it’s all right, dearie.” 

All was stillness again. They always slept badly; 
everyone was kept awake by something worrying 
and persistent: the old man by the pain in his back, 
Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by terror, the 
children by itch and hunger. Now, too, their sleep 
was troubled; they kept turning over from one side 


Peasants 


311 

to the other, talking in their sleep, getting up for a 
drink. 

Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, 
but immediately checked herself, and only uttered 
sobs from time to time, growing softer and on a 
lower note, until she relapsed into silence. From 
time to time from the other side of the river there 
floated the sound of the beating of the hours; but 
the time seemed somehow strange — five was struck 
and then three. 

“ Oh Lord! ” sighed the cook. 

Looking at the windows, it was difficult to tell 
whether it was still moonlight or whether the dawn 
had begun. Marya got up and went out, and she 
could be heard milking the cows and saying, 
“ Stea-dy ! ” Granny went out, too. It was still 
dark in the hut, but all the objects in it could be 
discerned. 

Nikolay, who had not slept all night, got down 
from the stove. He took his dress-coat out of a 
green box, put it on, and going to the window, 
stroked the sleeves and took hold of the coat-tails 
— and smiled. Then he carefully took off the coat, 
put it away in his box, and lay down again. 

Marya came in again and began lighting the 
stove. She was evidently hardly awake, and seemed 
dropping asleep as she walked. Probably she had 
had some dream, or the stories of the night before 
came into her mind as, stretching luxuriously before 
the stove, she said : 

“ No, freedom is better.” 


3 12 


The Tales of Chekhov 


VII 

The master arrived — that was what they called 
the police inspector. When he would come and 
what he was coming for had been known for the 
last week. There were only forty households in 
Zhukovo, but more than two thousand roubles of 
arrears of rates and taxes had accumulated. 

The police inspector stopped at the tavern. He 
drank there two glasses of tea, and then went on foot 
to the village elder’s hut, near which a crowd of 
those who were in debt stood waiting. The elder, 
Antip Syedelnikov, was, in spite of his youth — he 
was only a little over thirty — strict and always on 
the side of the authorities, though he himself was 
poor and did not pay his taxes regularly. Evidently 
he enjoyed being elder, and liked the sense of au- 
thority, which he could only display by strictness. 
In the village council the peasants were afraid of 
him and obeyed him. It would sometimes happen 
that he would pounce on a drunken man in the 
street or near the tavern, tie his hands behind him, 
and put him in the lock-up. On one occasion he 
even put Granny in the lock-up because she went to 
the village council instead of Osip, and began swear- 
ing, and he kept her there for a whole day and night. 
He had never lived in a town or read a book, but 
somewhere or other had picked up various learned 
expressions, and loved to make use of them in con- 
versation, and he was respected for this though he 
was not always understood. 


Peasants 


313 

When Osip came into the village elder’s hut with 
his tax book, the police inspector, a lean old man 
with a long grey beard, in a grey tunic, was sitting 
at a table in the passage, writing something. It was 
clean in the hut; all the walls were dotted with pic- 
tures cut out of the illustrated papers, and in the 
most conspicuous place near the ikon there was a 
portrait of the Battenburg who was the Prince of 
Bulgaria. By the table stood Antip Syedelnikov 
with his arms folded. 

“ There is one hundred and nineteen roubles 
standing against him,” he said when it came to 
Osip’s turn. “ Before Easter he paid a rouble, and 
he has not paid a kopeck since.” 

The police inspector raised his eyes to Osip and 
asked : 

“ Why is this, brother? ” 

“ Show Divine mercy, your honour,” Osip 
began, growing agitated. “ Allow me to say 
last year the gentleman at Lutorydsky said 
to me, ‘ Osip,’ he said, ‘ sell your hay . . . 
you sell it,’ he said. Well, I had a hundred 
poods for sale; the women mowed it on the water- 
meadow. Well, we struck a bargain all right, 
willingly. . . .” 

He complained of the elder, and kept turning 
round to the peasants as though inviting them to 
bear witness; his face flushed red and perspired, and 
his eyes grew sharp and angry. 

“ I don’t know why you are saying all this,” said 
the police inspector. u I am asking you ... I am 
asking you why you don’t pay your arrears. You 


314 The Tales of Chekhov 

don’t pay, any of you, and am I to be responsible 
for you? ” 

“ I can’t do it.” 

“ His words have no sequel, your honour,” said 
the elder. “ The Tchikildyeevs certainly are of a 
defective class, but if you will just ask the others, 
the root of it all is vodka, and they are a very bad 
lot. With no sort of understanding.” 

The police inspector wrote something down, and 
said to Osip quietly, in an even tone, as though he 
were asking him for water: 

“ Be off.” 

Soon he went away; and when he got into his 
cheap chaise and cleared his throat, it could be 
seen from the very expression of his long thin back 
that he was no longer thinking of Osip or of the 
village elder, nor of the Zhukovo arrears, but was 
thinking of his own affairs. Before he had gone 
three-quarters of a mile Antip was already carrying 
off the samovar from the Tchikildyeevs’ cottage, fol- 
lowed by Granny, screaming shrilly and straining 
her throat : 

“ I won’t let you have it, I won’t let you have 
it, damn you ! ” 

He walked rapidly with long steps, and she pur- 
sued him panting, almost falling over, a bent, fero- 
cious figure; her kerchief slipped on to her shoul- 
ders, her grey hair with greenish lights on it was 
blown about in the wind. She suddenly stopped 
short, and like a genuine rebel, fell to beating her 
breast with her fists and shouting louder than ever 
in a sing-song voice, as though she were sobbing: 


Peasants 


315 

“ Good Christians and believers in God! Neigh- 
bours, they have ill-treated me ! Kind friends, they 
have oppressed me ! Oh, oh ! dear people, take my 
part.” 

“Granny, Granny!” said the village elder 
sternly, “ have some sense in your head! ” 

It was hopelessly dreary in the Tchikildyeevs’ hut 
without the samovar; there was something humili- 
ating in this loss, insulting, as though the honour of 
the hut had been outraged. Better if the elder had 
carried off the table, all the benches, all the pots — 
it would not have seemed so empty. Granny 
screamed, Marya cried, and the little girls, looking 
at her, cried, too. The old father, feeling guilty, 
sat in the corner with bowed head and said nothing. 
And Nikolay, too, was silent. Granny loved him 
and was sorry for him, but now, forgetting her pity, 
she fell upon him with abuse, with reproaches, shak- 
ing her fist right in his face. She shouted that it 
was all his fault; why had he sent them so little 
when he boasted in his letters that he was getting 
fifty roubles a month at the Slavyansky Bazaar? 
Why had he come, and with his family, too? If 
he died, where was the money to come from for 
his funeral . . . ? And it was pitiful to look at 
Nikolay, Olga, and Sasha. 

The old father cleared his throat, took his cap, 
and went off to the village elder. Antip was solder- 
ing something by the stove, puffing out his cheeks; 
there was a smell of burning. His children, emaci- 
ated and unwashed, no better than the Tchikildyeevs, 
were scrambling about the floor; his wife, an ugly, 


316 The Tales of Chekhov 

freckled woman with a prominent stomach, was wind- 
ing silk. They were a poor, unlucky family, and 
Antip was the only one who looked vigorous and 
handsome. On a bench there were five samovars 
standing in a row. The old man said his prayer to 
Battenburg and said: 

“ Antip, show the Divine mercy. Give me back 
the samovar, for Christ’s sake ! ” 

“ Bring three roubles, then you shall have it.” 

“I can’t do it!” 

Antip puffed out his cheeks, the fire roared and 
hissed, and the glow was reflected in the samovar. 
The old man crumpled up his cap and said after 
a moment’s thought: 

“ You give it me back.” 

The swarthy elder looked quite black, and was 
like a magician; he turned round to Osip and said 
sternly and rapidly: 

“ It all depends on the rural captain. On the 
twenty-sixth instant you can state the grounds for 
your dissatisfaction before the administrative ses- 
sion, verbally or in writing.” 

Osip did not understand a word, but he was satis- 
fied with that and went home. 

Ten days later the police inspector came again, 
stayed an hour and went away. During those days 
the weather had changed to cold and windy; the 
river had been frozen for some time past, but still 
there was no snow, and people found it difficult to 
get about. On the eve of a holiday some of the 
neighbours came in to Osip’s to sit and have a talk. 
They did not light the lamp, as it would have been 


Peasants 


317 

a sin to work, but talked in the darkness. There 
were some items of news, all rather unpleasant. 
In two or three households hens had been taken 
for the arrears, and had been sent to the district 
police station, and there they had died because no 
one had fed them; they had taken sheep, and while 
they were being driven away tied to one another, 
shifted into another cart at each village, one of them 
had died. And now they were discussing the ques- 
tion, who was to blame? 

“ The Zemstvo,” said Osip. “ Who else? ” 

“ Of course it is the Zemstvo.” 

The Zemstvo was blamed for everything — for 
the arrears, and for the oppressions, and for the 
failure of the crops, though no one of them knew 
what was meant by the Zemstvo. And this dated 
from the time when well-to-do peasants who had 
factories, shops, and inns of their own were mem- 
bers of the Zemstvos, were dissatisfied with them, 
and took to swearing at the Zemstvos in their fac- 
tories and inns. 

They talked of God’s not sending the snow; they 
had to bring in wood for fuel, and there was no 
driving nor walking in the frozen ruts. In old 
days fifteen to twenty years ago conversation was 
much more interesting in Zhukovo. In those days 
every old man looked as though he were treasuring 
some secret; as though he knew something and was 
expecting something. They used to talk about an 
edict in golden letters, about the division of lands, 
about new land, about treasures; they hinted at 
something. Now the people of Zhukovo had no 


318 The Tales of Chekhov 

mystery at all; their whole life was bare and open 
in the sight of all, and they could talk of nothing but 
poverty, food, there being no snow yet. . . . 

There was a pause. Then they thought again of 
the hens, of the sheep, and began discussing whose 
fault it was. 

“ The Zemstvo,” said Osip wearily. “ Who 
else?” 

VIII 

The parish church was nearly five miles away 
at Kosogorovo, and the peasants only attended it 
when they had to do so for baptisms, weddings, or 
funerals; they went to the services at the church 
across the river. On holidays in fine weather the 
girls dressed up in their best and went in a crowd 
together to church, and it was a cheering sight to 
see them in their red, yellow, and green dresses cross 
the meadow; in bad weather they all stayed at home. 
They went for the sacrament to the parish church. 
From each of those who did not manage in Lent to 
go to confession in readiness for the sacrament the 
parish priest, going the round of the huts with the 
cross at Easter, took fifteen kopecks. 

The old father did not believe in God, for he 
hardly ever thought about Him; he recognized the 
supernatural, but considered it was entirely the wom- 
en’s concern, and when religion or miracles were 
discussed before him, or a question were put to him, 
he would say reluctantly, scratching himself : 

“ Who can tell ! ” 

Granny believed, but her faith was somewhat 


Peasants 


319 

hazy; everything was mixed up in her memory, and 
she could scarcely begin to think of sins, of death, 
of the salvation of the soul, before poverty and her 
daily cares took possession of her mind, and she 
instantly forgot what she was thinking about. She 
did not remember the prayers, and usually in the 
evenings, before lying down to sleep, she would 
stand before the ikons and whisper: 

u Holy Mother of Kazan, Holy Mother of 
Smolensk, Holy Mother of Troerutchitsy. . . .” 

Marya and Fyokla crossed themselves, fasted, 
and took the sacrament every year, but understood 
nothing. The children were not taught their pray- 
ers, nothing was told them about God, and no moral 
principles were instilled into them; they were only 
forbidden to eat meat or milk in Lent. In the 
other families it was much the same : there were few 
who believed, few who understood. At the same 
time everyone loved the Holy Scripture, loved it 
with a tender, reverent love; but they had no Bible, 
there was no one to read it and explain it, and be- 
cause Olga sometimes read them the gospel, they 
respected her, and they all addressed her and Sasha 
as though they were superior to themselves. 

For church holidays and services Olga often went 
to neighbouring villages, and to the district town, 
in which there were two monasteries and twenty- 
seven churches. She was dreamy, and when she was 
on these pilgrimages she quite forgot her family, 
and only when she got home again suddenly made the 
joyful discovery that she had a husband and daugh- 
ter, and then would say, smiling and radiant: 


The Tales of Chekhov 


32° 

“ God has sent me blessings I ” 

What went on in the village worried her and 
seemed to her revolting. On Elijah’s Day they 
drank, at the Assumption they drank, at the Ascen- 
sion they drank. The Feast of the Intercession was 
the parish holiday for Zhukovo, and the peasants 
used to drink then for three days; they squandered 
on drink fifty roubles of money belonging to the 
Mir, and then collected more for vodka from all the 
households. On the first day of the feast the Tchi- 
kildyeevs killed a sheep and ate of it in the morn- 
ing, at dinner-time, and in the evening; they ate it 
ravenously, and the children got up at night to eat 
more. Kiryak was fearfully drunk for three whole 
days; he drank up everything, even his boots and 
cap, and beat Marya so terribly that they had to 
pour water over her. And then they were all 
ashamed and sick. 

However, even in Zhukovo, in this “ Slavey- 
town,” there was once an outburst of genuine re- 
ligious enthusiasm. It was in August, when through- 
out the district they carried from village to village 
the Holy Mother, the giver of life. It was still 
and overcast on the day when they expected Her 
at Zhukovo. The girls set off in the morning to 
meet the ikon, in their bright holiday dresses, and 
brought Her towards the evening, in procession with 
the cross and with singing, while the bells pealed in 
the church across the river. An immense crowd of 
villagers and strangers flooded the street; there was 
noise, dust, a great crush. . . . And the old father 
and Granny and Kiryak — all stretched out their 


Peasants 


3 21 

hands to the ikon, looked eagerly at it and said, 
weeping : 

“Defender! Mother! Defender!” 

All seemed suddenly to realize that there was not 
an empty void between earth and heaven, that the 
rich and the powerful had not taken possession of 
everything, that there was still a refuge from in- 
jury, from slavish bondage, from crushing, unendur- 
able poverty, from the terrible vodka. 

“Defender! Mother!” sobbed Marya. 
“ Mother!” 

But the thanksgiving service ended and the ikon 
was carried away, and everything went on as be- 
fore; and again there was a sound of coarse drunken 
oaths from the tavern. 

Only the well-to-do peasants were afraid of death; 
the richer they were the less they believed in God, 
and in the salvation of souls, and only through fear 
of the end of the world put up candles and had 
services said for them, to be on the safe side. The 
peasants who were rather poorer were not afraid 
of death. The old father and Granny were told to 
their faces that they had lived too long, that it was 
time they were dead, and they did not mind. They 
did not hinder Fyokla from saying in Nikolay’s 
presence that when Nikolay died her husband Denis 
would get exemption — to return home from the 
army. And Marya, far from fearing death, re- 
gretted that it was so slow in coming, and was glad 
when her children died. 

Death they did not fear, but of every disease they 
had an exaggerated terror. The merest trifle was 


The Tales of Chekhov 


322 

enough — a stomach upset, a slight chill, and Granny 
would be wrapped up on the stove, and would begin 
moaning loudly and incessantly: 

“ I am dy-ing! ” 

The old father hurried off for the priest, and 
Granny received the sacrament and extreme unc- 
tion. They often talked of colds, of worms, of 
tumours which move in the stomach and coil round 
to the heart. Above all, they were afraid of catch- 
ing cold, and so put on thick clothes even in the sum- 
mer and warmed themselves at the stove. Granny 
was fond of being doctored, and often went to the 
hospital, where she used to say she was not seventy, 
but fifty-eight; she supposed that if the doctor knew 
her real age he would not treat her, but would say 
it was time she died instead of taking medicine. 
She usually went to the hospital early in the morn- 
ing, taking with her two or three of the little girls, 
and came back in the evening, hungry and ill-tem- 
pered — with drops for herself and ointments for 
the little girls. Once she took Nikolay, who swal- 
lowed drops for a fortnight afterwards, and said he 
felt better. 

Granny knew all the doctors and their assistants 
and the wise men for twenty miles round, and not 
one of them she liked. At the Intercession, when 
the priest made the round of the huts with the 
cross, the deacon told her that in the town near 
the prison lived an old man who had been a med- 
ical orderly in the army, and who made wonderful 
cures, and advised her to try him. Granny took 
his advice. When the first snow fell she drove to 


Peasants 


3^3 

the town and fetched an old man with a big beard, 
a converted Jew, in a long gown, whose face was 
covered with blue veins. There were outsiders at 
work in the hut at the time : an old tailor, in terrible 
spectacles, was cutting a waistcoat out of some rags, 
and two young men were making felt boots out of 
wool; Kiryak, who had been dismissed from his 
place for drunkenness, and now lived at home, was 
sitting beside the tailor mending a bridle. And it 
was crowded, stifling, and noisome in the hut. The 
converted Jew examined Nikolay and said that it 
was necessary to try cupping. 

He put on the cups, and the old tailor, Kiryak, 
and the little girls stood round and looked on, and 
it seemed to them that they saw the disease being 
drawn out of Nikolay; and Nikolay, too, watched 
how the cups suckling at his breast gradually filled 
with dark blood, and felt as though there really were 
something coming out of him, and smiled with pleas- 
ure. 

“ It’s a good thing,” said the tailor. “ Please 
God, it will do you good.” 

The Jew put on twelve cups and then another 
twelve, drank some tea, and went away. Nikolay 
began shivering; his face looked drawn, and, as the 
women expressed it, shrank up like a fist; his fingers 
turned blue. He wrapped himself up in a quilt and 
in a sheepskin, but got colder and colder. Towards 
the evening he began to be in great distress; asked 
to be laid on the ground, asked the tailor not to 
smoke; then he subsided under the sheepskin and 
towards morning he died. 


324 The Tales of Chekhov 


IX 

Oh, what a grim, what a long winter ! 

Their own grain did not last beyond Christmas, 
and they had to buy flour. Kiryak, who lived at 
home now, was noisy in the evenings, inspiring terror 
in everyone, and in the mornings he suffered from 
headache and was ashamed; and he was a pitiful 
sight. In the stall the starved cows bellowed day 
and night — a heart-rending sound to Granny and 
Marya. And as ill-luck would have it, there was a 
sharp frost all the winter, the snow drifted in high 
heaps, and the winter dragged on. At Annuncia- 
tion there was a regular blizzard, and there was a 
fall of snow at Easter. 

But in spite of it all the winter did end. At 
the beginning of April there came warm days and 
frosty nights. Winter would not give way, but one 
warm day overpowered it at last, and the streams 
began to flow and the birds began to sing. The 
whole meadow and the bushes near the river were 
drowned in the spring floods, and all the space 
between Zhukovo and the further side was filled 
up with a vast sheet of water, from which wild ducks 
rose up in flocks here and there. The spring sun- 
set, flaming among gorgeous clouds, gave every eve- 
ning something new, extraordinary, incredible — 
just what one does not believe in afterwards, when 
one sees those very colours and those very clouds 
in a picture. 

The cranes flew swiftly, swiftly, with mournful 


Peasants 


325 

cries, as though they were calling themselves. 
Standing on the edge of the ravine, Olga looked 
a long time at the flooded meadow, at the sunshine, 
at the bright church, that looked as though it had 
grown younger; and her tears flowed and her breath 
came in gasps from her passionate longing to go 
away, to go far away to the end of the world. It 
was already settled that she should go back to Mos- 
cow to be a servant, and that Kiryak should set off 
with her to get a job as a porter or something. Oh, 
to get away quickly ! 

As soon as it dried up and grew warm they got 
ready to set off. Olga and Sasha, with wallets 
on their backs and shoes of plaited bark on their 
feet, came out before daybreak: Marya came out, 
too, to see them on their way. Kiryak was not 
well, and was kept at home for another week. For 
the last time Olga prayed at the church and thought 
of her husband, and though she did not shed tears, 
her face puckered up and looked ugly like an old 
woman’s. During the winter she had grown thin- 
ner and plainer, and her hair had gone a little grey, 
and instead of the old look of sweetness and the 
pleasant smile on her face, she had the resigned, 
mournful expression left by the sorrows she had 
been through, and there was something blank and 
irresponsive in her eyes, as though she did not hear 
what was said. She was sorry to part from the 
village and the peasants. She remembered how 
they had carried out Nikolay, and how a requiem 
had been ordered for him at almost every hut, and 
all had shed tears in sympathy with her grief. In 


326 The Tales of Chekhov 

the course of the summer and the winter there had 
been hours and days when it seemed as though these 
people lived worse than the beasts, and to live with 
them was terrible; they were coarse, dishonest, 
filthy, and drunken; they did not live in harmony, 
but quarrelled continually, because they distrusted 
and feared and did not respect one another. Who 
keeps the tavern and makes the people drunken? A 
peasant. Who wastes and spends on drink the funds 
of the commune, of the schools, of the church? A 
peasant. Who stole from his neighbours, set fire 
to their property, gave false witness at the court 
for a bottle of vodka? At the meetings of the 
Zemstvo and other local bodies, who was the first 
to fall foul of the peasants? A peasant. Yes, to 
live with them was terrible; but yet, they were hu- 
man beings, they suffered and wept like human be- 
ings, and there was nothing in their lives for which 
one could not find excuse. Hard labour that made 
the whole body ache at night, the cruel winters, the 
scanty harvests, the overcrowding; and they had no 
help and none to whom they could look for help. 
Those of them who were a little stronger and better 
off could be no help, as they were themselves coarse, 
dishonest, drunken, and abused one another just as 
revoltingly; the paltriest little clerk or official treated 
the peasants as though they were tramps, and ad- 
dressed even the village elders and church wardens 
as inferiors, and considered they had a right to do 
so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good 
example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, 
and idle persons who only visit the village in order 


Peasants 


3*7 


to insult, to despoil, and to terrorize? Olga remem- 
bered the pitiful, humiliated look of the old people 
when in the winter Kiryak had been taken to be 
flogged. . . . And now she felt sorry for all these 
people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept 
looking back at the huts. 

After walking two miles with them Marya said 
good-bye, then kneeling, and falling forward with 
her face on the earth, she began wailing: 

“ Again I am left alone. Alas, for poor me ! 
poor, unhappy! . . 

And she wailed like this for a long time, and for 
a long way Olga and Sasha could still see her on 
her knees, bowing down to someone at the side and 
clutching her head in her hands, while the rooks flew 
over her head. 

The sun rose high ; it began to get hot. Zhukovo 
was left far behind. Walking was pleasant. Olga 
and Sasha soon forgot both the village and Marya; 
they were gay and everything entertained them. 
Now they came upon an ancient barrow, now upon 
a row of telegraph posts running one after another 
into the distance and disappearing into the horizon, 
and the wires hummed mysteriously. Then they 
saw a homestead, all wreathed in green foliage; 
there came a scent from it of dampness, of hemp, 
and it seemed for some reason that happy people 
lived there. Then they came upon a horse's skele- 
ton whitening in solitude in the open fields. And 
the larks trilled unceasingly, the corncrakes called 
to one another, and the landrail cried as though some- 
one were really scraping at an old iron rail. 


328 The Tales of Chekhov 

At midday Olga and Sasha reached a big village. 
There in the broad street they met the little old 
man who was General Zhukov’s cook. He was hot, 
and his red, perspiring bald head shone in the sun- 
shine. Olga and he did not recognize each other, 
then looked round at the same moment, recognized 
each other, and went their separate ways without 
saying a word. Stopping near the hut which looked 
newest and most prosperous, Olga bowed down be- 
fore the open windows, and said in a loud, thin, 
chanting voice : 

“ Good Christian folk, give alms, for Christ’s 
sake, that God’s blessing may be upon you, and that 
your parents may be in the Kingdom of Heaven in 
peace eternal.” 

u Good Christian folk,” Sasha began chanting, 
“ give, for Christ’s sake, that God’s blessing, the 
Heavenly Kingdom . . .” 


THE END 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


"THE following pages contain advertisements of 
Macmillan books by the same author. 




THE TALES OF ANTON CHEKHOV 


TRANSLATED BY CONSTANCE GARNETT , WITH A 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD GARNETT 

Attractive decorated green cloth bindings, printed in large type 
on good paper. 


Mrs. Garnett, whose excellence in translating the works of 
Turgenev and Dostoevski has been acclaimed universally by the 
critics, is now rendering the tales of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 
into English. This is to be the only complete edition of his 
works in English, collecting in uniform style and in the best 
possible translations all of his works. As Chekhov is declared 
to be the greatest master of the short story since Maupassant, 
this series will be a valuable addition to literature. 

THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES 

$1.50 

"In spite of its exquisite gay humour, I at least cannot read 
without tears some passages of this wonderful story.” — T olstoy. 

"Chekhov’s sympathy with Imagination and his hatred for com- 
monplace folk who stupidly try to repress its manifestations are 
shown again and again in his tales ... he is eternally at war 
with the practical, with the narrow-minded, with the common- 
place ... he was indeed an exquisite artist. He is a faithful 
interpreter of Russian life, and although his art was objective, 
one cannot help feeling the essential goodness of the man behind 
his work, and loving him for it.” — William Lyon Phelps: 
Essays on Russian Novelists. 

"An unflinching realist . . . with a poet’s sensitiveness to 
heauty.”— Edward Garnett. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Pifth Avenue New York 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE DUEL 

$1.50 

“Chekhov has a keen and satirical pen, a deep insight into 
the heart of the peasant, and marvel of marvels, a sense of 
humor. This last is what makes his stories so remarkable. 
The gloom and pessimism usual in Russian tales are present 
upon occasion, but Chekhov can be happy, droll and fantastic, 
when he pleases.” 

Of the translator the Post-Standard writes: “Mrs. Garnett is 
the most able translator of Russian literature in the country. 
Her translations of Turgenev and Dostoevski are recognized as 
standard. It is well that she is turning her attention to Chekhov.’* 

“Chekhov has looked down into the depths and beyond into 
the souls of men, and he has given us of their inmost thoughts ; 
he has shown us the way and the life-posts whereby the human 
creature travels.” — Bookseller , Newsdealer • and Stationer . 

“Striking stories, grimly rich in Russian color.” — Boston Daily 
Advertiser. 

“ ‘The Duel’ is a wonderful story in its realism and its fidelity 
to character. ... It is life, of that fact there can be no question 
... all too brief.” — San Francisco Chronicle. 

“The story, like a thrilling personal experience, is something to 
ponder for a lifetime,” — North American Review. 

Other Volumes in Preparation. 

The other volumes in this series will be published from time 
to time as rapidly as they are translated and ready for the press. 
A number of volumes are already in preparation. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenur New York 


BY THE SAME A UTHOR 

THE LADY WITH THE DOG 


Cloth, i2mo , $1.50 

“The Lady with the Dog” by Anton Chekhov is the third 
volume in the new series of Chekhov’s tales translated from the 
Russian by Constance Garnett. The two titles previously pub- 
lished are “ The Duel and Other Stories ” and “ The Darling 
and Other Stories.” 

“The Lady with the Dog” contains nine stories in all, as fol- 
lows: “A Doctor’s Visit,” “An Upheaval,” “Ionitch,” “The 
Head of the Family,” “The Black Monk,” “Volodya,” “An 
Anonymous Story” and “The Husband.” 

This new series of Russian translations is proving deservedly 
popular. Here is a typical comment on it taken from the San 
Francisco Bulletin: “Chekhov’s tales possess a wide variety of 
scene, subject and situation. He is a realist in the full sense of 
the word, but at the same time has the poetic sensitiveness to 
beauty. He lacks the cynical touch of de Maupassant, with 
whom he has been compared, and looks upon his fellow men 
with a charitable eye. Humour and tenderness, passion and mel- 
ancholy are most artistically blended in these stories.” 

The Detroit Free Press says of these books: “Chekhov is re- 
garded as a master of the short story in Russia and as trans- 
lated by Mrs. Constance Garnett seems to prove his claim to 
American suffrages.” 

“Chekhov, though he has been dead more than half a cen- 
tury now, is one of the greatest of the masters of the Russian 
short story, almost on a level with Tolstoy in fiction. His 
clear, limpid style, his crisp action and his dramatic simplicity 
of incident have long since given him the name abroad of the 
Russian de Maupassant. But Chekhov has practically never, un- 
til just now, been available to English readers. He will be 
vastly enjoyed by them.” — Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

“Intense realism as to living circumstance which marks all o I 
iChekhov’s tales, combined with that faculty for putting himself 
in another’s place which gives this writer an almost uncanny 
power to present and interpret states of mind.” — New York 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publisher} 04-65 Fifth Avenue Sew Tork 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE PARTY AND OTHER STORIES 


Cloth, i2tno, $1.50 


“He sees deeply into human life, and he can translate vision 
into expression. He creates real characters, shows them in their 
joy and in their pain, demonstrates his understanding of how 
close-bound are the two, and gives an insight into human hope 
and yearning. . . . There is hardly a page that does not stimulate 
the reader to quickened admiration of Chekhov’s marvellous re- 
sponsiveness to the finest shadings in human feeling. 

There are eleven stories in the volume, and every one will be 
welcome to that increasing band of readers who have come to 
know, and therefore to deeply admire, Chekhov.”— Book News 
Monthly. 

“ Immensely clever tales of Russian life by one who was a 
master of his art, who has vivid imaginative power .” — The 
Outlook. 

“His work illuminates the whole of Russian life, the main 
thorofares, the bypasses, the unfrequented recesses. Without 
Chekhov, how are we to embark on the discovery of Russia ? ” 
— The Dial. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE WIPE AND OTHER STORIES 

“ Story writing in Chekhov’s hands is a science, but a truly 
human science, a science that takes account of men’s most deli- 
cate emotions, of their most mysterious impulses, but that 
philosophizes not at all. Like psychology it reveals realities of 
mental mechanism and of the heart and soul. It compels the 
reader to see himself as mazed in flesh and spirit. Like William 
James, it makes one aware of the insufficiency of purely mech- 
anistic views and of purely idealistic views. At the same time 
and by the same means it develops and guides one’s love of 
humanity .” — North American Review. 

In the volume entitled “The Wife and Other Stories,” are 
included nine tales of intimate Russian life. That Chekhov is 
still that artist we have known in the earlier volumes, is told 
on every page of this collection of absorbing tales. 

The contents are as follows: 

The Wife 
Difficult People 
The Grasshopper 
A Dreary Story 
The Privy Councillor 
The Man in a Case 
Gooseberries 
About Love 
The Lottery Ticket 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 














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1996 


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